Murphy's Law
by skygirl55
Summary: The last person Kate Beckett expects to bump into in an airport is Richard Castle and of course he's on her flight, too. AU After Season 1.
1. Chapter 1

_The last person Kate Beckett expects to bump into in an airport is Richard Castle and of course he's on her flight, too. AU After Season 1._

* * *

 _Murphy's Law: Whatever can go wrong, will go wrong._

* * *

 **Chapter One**

Kate Beckett skidded to a stop in front of Gate 32C at John F. Kennedy International Airport and breathed a sigh of relief; she had made it! Of course her gate had to be the one absolutely the furthest from the airport entrance when she was already running almost two hours late. As she slowed her pace to a walk, Kate tried to breathe deep while gazing at the door for the ramp leading to the plane. The door was closed, which momentarily made her heart clutch with the fear she would be denied boarding, but something was not right about this picture.

If the plane had boarded, there surely would not be this many people gathered around the gate area—some seated, some standing, upwards of seventy percent of them gazing at smart phones. Upon further examination, most of them also appeared to be quite annoyed or, at the very least, impatient. Her eyes still scanning the area, Kate finally took note of the reason.

The blinking, bold red letters announcing FLIGHT DELAYED from the status board caused Kate to grin and mentally clap her hands in triumph. Normally, a delayed flight was the worst possible way to begin a journey; however, given her tardiness, in this case a half hour delay meant a bathroom break and possibly even a bottle of water were a distinct possibility. Considering the stress she'd gone through in her rush to the airport, those prospects were equally welcome.

Just as Kate was turning to head back up the concourse to the nearest women's restroom, she heard her phone chirp and absentmindedly pulled it from the pocket of her blazer. Unfortunately, she had not had time to change our of her more formal clothing before heading to the airport; thank god for the hindsight of bringing her luggage with her for the day as she never would have made it back to her apartment—or the precinct. As much as she wished for jeans in lieu of the business suit, at least the flight would be short in duration—once she was able to get on it.

Examining the display of her phone, Kate discovered a text message from American Airlines stating that her flight had been delayed and the new departure time was 5:25 p.m. "Thanks, I know." She muttered to the phone before swiping at the unlock screen and tapping in her password. As long as the device was out she figured she should skim through her work emails quickly to make sure nothing urgent had come up, though, as she did not have an active case at the moment, she did not expect anything too pressing.

Kate was happy for Kevin, she really was. He was clearly completely head-over-heels for Jenny and they had a great relationship. Of course she was thrilled to attend the wedding of her friend and colleague so she could share in their joyful day. The day simply had unfortunate timing, particularly since the wedding was taking place in Virginia Beach and not in Manhattan.

Realistically, being away from the precinct for barely more than forty-eight hours should not have been a problem for her, but with Ryan taking nearly two weeks off for his wedding and honeymoon and Esposito taking off an extra few days to fulfil his groomsman duties her team was already at skeleton crew level. After she and Espo wrapped up their most recent case on Wednesday of that week, she was forced to tell Montgomery they could not take on any new active cases until the following week—something she absolutely hated to do. The captain understood, of course. He even playacted her by saying he didn't intent to assign any new cases as they had a court appearance at the end of the week. Still, she didn't like not pulling her weight, even if categorizing the situation as such was unfair.

While her colleague scooted off to finalize wedding details, Kate immersed herself in reviewing notes from an arrest they'd made nearly nine months prior. A drug deal gone wrong had led to a man shooting his dealer, fleeing the scene, and then inadvertently running across an innocent bystander, whom he had also shot. The dealer had survived his leg wound, but after a month in the hospital the bystander had succumbed to complications from his abdomen shot, which meant the assailant was on trial for first degree murder.

The case itself was fairly straightforward. There were several witnesses as well as traffic camera footage that caught the shooter fleeing the scene on foot; Kate's appearance in court as the arresting officer should have merely been a formality…and it would have been had someone involved in another case not chosen to walk in to the courthouse with a weapon that morning. Thus her time on the stand was pushed from ten a.m. to two p.m., hence her mad rush to the airport.

Fortunately, all that was behind her now and so she should have been able to clear her mind and simply focus on having a good weekend, but she was Kate Beckett. When had Kate Beckett ever been able to put work aside and focus on the present? Never, that's when.

After answering two emails Kate forced herself to put her phone away once more. If she kept reading and answering she knew she'd burn up most of her thirty minute gift and end up not having time to use the restroom. With an exhale, she tucked her boarding pass into the front pocket of her purse and began walking back up the hallway now even more crowded with departing and arriving passengers.

She had only taken five steps when a man stepped out from the seating area and almost completely blocked her path. As his eyes were focused on the iPhone in his hand, she assume he didn't notice her, which was quite fortunate for her, because she most certainly noticed—and recognized—him.

Shit.

What the hell was Richard Castle doing in his airport? How was that even possible?

She gazed at him for several moments out of pure shock, taking in his typical Richard Castle attire of dark trousers, a light blue button-down, navy blazer. He didn't look much different, not that she had expected him to have acquired a facial tattoo or gained several hundred pounds in the thirteen months since she'd seen him. Yet, there he was, barely five feet from her. For a fleeting moment, she thought she could scoot around him and escape without being noticed, but then he looked up and—oh. He was looking directly at her. His brow rose, indicating surprise and then he raised his hand and waved, giving her a dopy smile.

Shit. There was definitely no escaping now.

"Beckett. Long time no see." He grinned at her as he closed the distance between them.

"Castle." She tried to keep her voice even and did her best not to growl at him. She was a professional. She could be professional for a two minute conversation.

Probably.

"How are you?"

"I'm…fine—good. You?"

"Excellent." He glanced over at Gate 32C still displaying the FLIGHT DELAYED message and then back to the detective, his brow now wrinkling slightly. "You're…on your way to Kev and Jenny's wedding?"

"I…yes." She confirmed before cursing internally. If he was asking her about the wedding then more than likely he was also going to the wedding. Why else would he be standing in front of an airport gate going to Norfolk, Virginia? As the gates were packed quite tightly, he could have been traveling somewhere else, but the only other planes in their vicinity were going to Boston and Dallas, neither of which seemed any more likely. Great.

"I, uh, couldn't fly our earlier because I had a court appearance." She explained.

"Guilty verdict?"

She shrugged. "The trial continues Monday, but it seemed like the guy might plead out."

He hummed and nodded. Then, gesturing towards the airport gate he said, "Well, as I'm sure you saw, we have a delay. If you're wondering I heard someone ask and the gate agent said the incoming flight is what's holding us up."

She nodded. Well, that was helpful information. Not that it much mattered if the plane was late or if it was having mechanical trouble; they still wouldn't be taking off on time. Then again, a delayed incoming plane certainly explained the shorter delay whereas presumably mechanical trouble would take longer than half an hour to fix. "Okay. Thanks. I was just-"

Kate's comment was just then interrupted by an announcement on the airport loud speakers. It told them that their flight to Norfolk, the nearest airport to Virginia Beach, was delayed again and the new departure time was 7:45 p.m.

Castle glanced down at his watch. "Almost two and a half more hours. Perfect."

Kate could not say that she entirely disagreed with his irritated tone. A half hour delay was one thing, but an additional two and a quarter hours? That would mean she would not get to her hotel in Virginia Beach until after ten p.m. While this was certainly not the latest time, it was annoying as she had already had a very long day. "Yeah." She sighed out. "Perfect."

"Well," the writer continued, now giving her a small smile, "would you like to grab a drink? My treat."

As Kate gazed up at him she tried her best not to reveal any emotions on her face. Did she want to hang out with Castle? In a word: no. In fact, had someone asked her several hours earlier, she probably would have told them that Castle was one of the absolute last people in the city she wanted to spend any time with. She never even considered the possibility of him being at Kevin and Jenny's wedding, which would have been irritating enough, but now she faced the possibility of spending two and a half hours with him?!

There was, of course, the option of saying no. She could go to the restroom and then return to the gate, find a seat furthest from him and read the book she brought with her, but she knew Richard Castle too well for that. He'd get all offended and become even more irritating. Perhaps he'd even shoot her those sad puppy dog face looks from across the terminal. Either way there was no way she would be able to read in peace.

Okay, okay, she thought; she could totally do this. She was an adult. Castle was (arguably) an adult. She could bury the hatched with him for forty-eight hours. How bad could it possibly be?

 _Wait. It's Castle_ , she thought; _don't answer that._

"Uh, yeah, okay. Just give me a few minutes first?"

He bobbed his head. "Absolutely, Kate; I'll wait right here."

* * *

Standing in JFK Airport Terminal 8, his hands in his pockets as he rocked back on his heels, trying his best to stay out of the way of the rushing passengers, Richard Castle could not have been more pleased with himself. He had anticipated seeing Beckett at the wedding or perhaps at dinner in the hotel that evening, but sharing a plane with her was certainly an unexpected treat. Even better: sharing a drink. He feared that if he only saw her at the wedding or the reception they would not have the opportunity to talk—an opportunity he very much wanted as things needed to be said, but the plane delay was turning out to be a positive rather than a negative, which he surely never would have anticipated.

To say that they had not parted on good terms a year prior would have been an understatement. Things ended badly between them when he stood in a sterile hospital hallway fifteen months earlier and confessed what he'd discovered about her mother's murder. He honestly wasn't sure what had been the most upsetting part: the devastated look on her face at the feelings his information dredged up or the acidic way she told him she never wanted to see him again.

Despite how livid she had been at the time, Castle's eternal optimism told him that she would ultimately come around if given a week or two to cool off. He had, after all, done nothing malicious. He only wanted to help her.

Castle could see how much her mother's murder ate away at her and, thanks to his own experiences, could completely understand a deep-rooted life-changing incident, and he wanted to do what he could to aid in solving this case just like he had all the others. Yes, technically he had gone against something she requested, but when was that new? It was part of their dynamic. She told him not to do something, he did it anyway, and in the end it all worked out. Unfortunately, when, several weeks later, he told her as much, she had LT forcibly remove him from the precinct.

After that, he tried to keep his distance, still hopeful, but also realizing he may have truly crossed into the point of no return. As the weeks went on and she glowered at him from the break room every time he stopped by the Twelfth to see Ryan or Esposito, his annoyance grew, a small part of him believing she was overreacting by cutting off what had previously been an excellent partnership at the knees because of one simple misstep.

Their discourse finally came to a head two months later when he was back at the Twelfth taking photographs and doing press for the release of the inaugural Nikki Heat novel. They'd had an argument that began when he tried to strike up a pleasant and innocent conversation with her. She snapped at him and when he returned with, "Just tell me what you want me to say to make this right, Beckett," she had said, "I don't want you to say anything. I want you to leave this precinct and never come back." When she'd declined her invitation to the Nikki Heat book release party he'd known for certain: whatever they had was gone for good.

In the months following Castle had experienced no small amount of regret. He had not quite realized how much he enjoyed his days of playing real life cops and robbers until they were gone. In addition, he had not realized quite how enthralled he was with Kate Beckett until she was gone as well.

With the arrival of Kevin's wedding invitation Castle knew he would be getting a second chance. If he was invited then surely so was Beckett and if they were finally in the same place—on neutral ground, so to speak—he could apologize to her. Despite his optimism, he realistically understood the chances of their partnership rebooting were slim. However, if he could end the weekend with her greeting him with a neutral expression rather than a glare, he would consider it a win.

Approximately five minutes after she'd disappeared, Castle heard Kate approaching once more by the way her heels clicked against the airport flooring. The terminal was bustling with people, some merely strolling along, others practically sprinting, but despite the chaos he could recognize her gate anywhere. Turning his head to the left he spotted her approaching and was for perhaps the hundredth time rendered breathless by her beauty.

Beckett's hair had changed since last he saw her. It was longer, which was to be expected, but also a different color. Gone was the mauve of a year ago; it was now a pleasant shade of chestnut brown. Given how nicely it matched her eyebrows he assumed this to be her natural color and instantly wished she'd never dye it again.

Though he preferred her casual—in jeans and a t-shirt, perhaps a button-down blouse—he could not deny how sexy she looked in her power suit. The blazer and matching knee-length skirt were dark in color—navy or perhaps even eggplant—but they looked excellent with the cream colored blouse she wore beneath. With her hair falling in gentle curls to her shoulders, she looked just as lovely as the day they met; perhaps even lovelier.

When she came within a few feet of him, he led the way to the nearest bar situated at a pub-style restaurant not too far from their gate. He ordered beers on tap for both of them and then, given the hour, offered her dinner as well. She refused at first, but ultimately relented and ordered a hot Reuben sandwich while he chose the bleu cheese burger.

"So why didn't you fly out earlier today?" She asked as they sipped their drinks and waited for their food.

He hummed as he set down his beer glass. "I, ah, had a chapter due by five today, but when Gina heard about the wedding she moved the time up to noon."

She smirked at him. "And you were still writing at 11:59?"

He gasped dramatically and pressed his palm flat against his chest, fingers splayed. "Beckett, you wound me. It was 11:58 when I hit 'send' on the email." Okay, he was exaggerating slightly for entertainment value. The chapter had been completed the night before—well, at one a.m.—and he was doing some proofreading that morning, so he'd really emailed her around quarter to twelve, which was still closed by many standards, but quite comfortable by his.

Kate chuckled. "Well, at least you finished."

He grimaced. "Kind of. The chapter is horrible and I'm certain Gina will hate it."

"Is it another Nikki Heat?"

The delivery of their meals by the bartender afforded Castle the extra moment to pause and consider carefully how he would word his response. Certainly, this was a delicate area. "Ah, no. All things considered I decided against continuing that series. The book I'm currently writing—rather, trying to write—has new characters and is meant to be a stand-alone like I used to do, but it, ah, could be going better."

Oh, yeah, that was an understatement—a huge understatement unless "could be going well" could equate to saying that the Titanic had taken on a little water. He had reworked and rewritten so many times he had lost count. Unfortunately, the story was making less and less sense as time went on, but what choice did he have? A contract was a contract and he had to produce books. He knew Gina wanted nothing more than to go back to Nikki Heat since the inaugural novel had not only been well-received critically, but sold at an above-expected rate. Write what the public wants, she continuously told him, but unfortunately it was never that simple.

When Kate was silent for over a minute, Castle dared to glance at her and found her flipping a potato chip between a few of her fingers. When she met his eye she, for perhaps the first time in over a year, her expression appeared to soften. "Castle…if what happened with us made you feel like you couldn't continue with Nikki Heat… I mean, it's your character; your story…"

He offered her a small smile. Her statement did make him feel better—minimally, but better. He was glad to hear she was not outright banning him from using the character she inspired, but instead offering permission. Once again, though, it was not that simple. To write a character, he needed to feel him or her in his heart, and with the termination of his relationship with Nikki's inspiration, Castle no longer had the heart to write Nikki, as much as he missed both her and her real-life counterpart.

"That's kind of you to say Beckett, but I'm not sure I agree." Maybe if they were going to get technical—legal—about it, Nikki would be his character, but that's not how he felt. She was both of them together, which made writing her without his partnership with Kate nearly impossible.

After taking a bite of her sandwich, Kate picked up a paper napkin and asked, "So what's the new book about?"

"Aliens."

She laughed and he shook his head. "Not kidding. It's very… _Independence Day_ meets _National Treasure_."

"Oh." Her expression showed a minimal amount of curiosity, but mostly confusion. "Well, I'm sure you'll make it interesting."

"Interesting? Maybe. Publishable? Not so much."

She eyed him with uncertainty before, for the moment, they both returned to their sandwiches. Only two more hours until take off.

* * *

 _A/N: Hope you guys enjoyed the first chapter. I didn't want to give too much away in the description, but the first chapter gives you the gist of where this is going._

 _There are 8 chapters in total._


	2. Chapter 2

**Chapter Two**

"It's delayed again."

"Hmm?" Kate grunted as she popped the last of her potato chips into her mouth. Turning to the writer, she watched as he thumbed in the direction of their gate.

"It's delayed again. The board says-" He cut off his speech when an announcement came over the loudspeaker stating that their flight's takeoff time was now pushed back to 8:15. Kate felt her phone vibrate in her pocket and assumed she had received a text message repeating the information.

With a sigh, the detective pushed away her now empty plate and drained her beer. Leaning back in her seat she said, "Well, I can't say I'm shocked; this whole trip seems to be getting off on the wrong foot."

"I don't know about that," the writer said with his tone of endless positivity. "We did have a pretty decent dinner and you're more than decent company."

Despite herself, Kate did smile gently at his comment. Castle certainly did know how to navigate his way through life using flirtation and flattery; that fact had not changed after a year. Still, no matter how pleasant their meal together had been the memory of what he had done burned fresh in her mind and so keeping him at arm's length needed to be her priority.

"Another drink?"

She chuckled lightly. "I don't really want to be drunk by the time the plane takes off, Castle."

"It's only a second beer—I didn't realize you were such a cheap date, Beckett."

She shot him a look and then flagged the bar tender to bring them another round. Cheap date—ha! She'd show him what a cheap date looked like. When it came down to it, she was almost certain she could drink him under the table—not that they needed to test that theory at the JFK Airport.

"So, Kev and Jenny, huh?"

"What?" Kate questioned, not having been paying attention to him as she was watching the bartender bringing over their drinks.

"Kevin and Jenny—the wedding."

"What about it?"

He shrugged as he brought the fresh glass to his lips. "Nothing, really. I guess I'm just surprised their still going through with it."

Her brow wrinkled as she gazed at him. "What does that mean?"

He abruptly put his glass down and appeared rather guilty. "Oh. Um. You…you don't know the story? Shit I thought you'd know…"

"What story?" she asked, now slightly impatient. As far as she was aware Ryan and his fiancée were deliriously in love with each other, so she could hardly imagine any "story" Castle was suggesting.

"The miscarriage story?"

Her eyes flared wide. No, she definitely had not heard this story. "Jenny was pregnant?"

The writer grimaced. "Shit… I really thought you knew. Well, don't tell Ryan I told you, okay? Jenny probably doesn't want it spread around…I know they were keeping it close, but Espo knew so I just assumed."

She shook her head. Of course she wouldn't mention anything to her colleague or his bride if she wasn't supposed to know, but now the writer had piqued her curiosity so much that she need more details. "Of course—I won't say anything to them. When did all this happen?"

Castle sipped his drink. "Few months back—right before they announced their engagement. It's why they got engaged, I think—Jenny's pregnancy. I mean obviously it's not the only reason—Ryan's been pretty in love from the start, but…well, anyway, they started planning this whole shindig because Jenny wanted to get married before she started to show too much. Then…I think it was maybe a month later? Maybe not even that long that Kevin said she lost the baby."

Kate sunk back in her chair, feeling her heart droop towards her stomach. "How awful; I had no idea." She tried to think back to the time he referred to—months earlier when Ryan had announced his engagement and informed them the wedding would be held sooner than later, but not given an exact date. She thought about how he acted around that time, but could not recall anything out of the ordinary, or anything that would have indicated a tragic incident in his life, which made her feel worse.

"Well, as I said, I know they were keeping it pretty close. I got the impression that Kevin didn't want too many people to know Jenny was pregnant—at least, not right away."

Kate nodded. "Well, I mean, aren't you not supposed to tell anyone for the first trimester. Just in case…" She let her voice drift off not wanting to say, "just in case you miscarry," since that was indeed what happened.

Castle hummed. "Yes, that's what you're _supposed_ to do."

Kate almost chuckled. From his tone, she somehow just knew. "You told everyone right away, didn't you?"

He smiled, guilty. "Well, not _everyone_. I did manage to restrain myself from taking out an ad in the _Post_ …but otherwise, yes I told a lot of people about Alexis…fortunately it all worked out. Anyway, the point being that I was slightly surprised they didn't scrap the whole wedding plan. They hadn't sent out invitations yet—they could have."

Kate arched a skeptical eyebrow in his direction as her fingertips tapped the side of her beer glass, collecting droplets of condensation. "Is that coming from your fear of marriage?"

"I don't have a fear of marriage."

"Aversion to marriage." She corrected.

"I don't have one of those either. I was, however, someone who stayed in an unhappy marriage because of a child—not that I regret any of it. Let's just call it the wisdom of experience."

Kate took a slow slip from her glass as she considered his words; she found them interesting. His comments seemed to imply that because of his previous experiences, were he in Kevin's shoes he would have postponed the nuptials. Perhaps, though, he also was implying that were he in Kevin's shoes he might not have gotten engaged at all just because of a pregnancy. "So you don't think Kev and Jenny should get married…what? At all? This quickly after what happened?"

He shook his head. "I'm not saying that. Everyone's different. They're happy and in love and that's great."

"But you…?"

"Will enter very cautiously into marriage the next time."

She swirled her beer glass, considering once again. Perhaps she had been wrong to peg him as the playboy without a care. It seemed the dissolution of his first marriage—of his nuclear family—had hurt him quite a bit. That was unfortunate. However many things he was or was not, at the end of the day Kate knew Richard Castle to be a good man. If he had not been, their partnership would not have made it past its first week. Still, this surprised her, and she decided it would be best to change the subject away from such delicate issues.

Picking up her glass, she spoke just before bringing it to her lips. "I didn't realize you'd stayed close with Ryan and Espo."

He hummed into his drink. "Oh well I don't know if I'd call it close. We've gone to some games, grabbed drinks here and there…they call me to consult on cases."

Kate nearly choked on her drink. Appalled and shocked, she sputtered out, "They call…you?!"

"Once. They called me once." He corrected sheepishly.

Once! That was one time too many! "For which case?"

"Doesn't matter."

"Castle."

"That robbery-murder about six months ago…"

At his admission, Kate groaned. Though they had worked many cases in the prior months that one did stand out to her and know she knew the reason why. "I knew Ryan didn't come up with 'miraculously ricocheting bullet' on his own!"

"That was a good theory!" He insisted.

"If you ignore physics! And reason!" She countered.

He grinned at her, big and wide. "You missed this didn't you?"

Leaning away from him she studied his face. "Missed what?"

"This. Case theory."

She scoffed and turned back to her drink, muttering, "Don't flatter yourself too much, Castle."

After taking a sip of her drink she dared herself to glance over at the writer. Her eyes just barely turned in his direction and she caught him smiling still. She grumbled to himself. Perhaps she had missed him just a little bit.

* * *

"Well, that's not a good sign."

Castle gazed up from his phone where he was scanning the headlines of the CNN webpage and looked over at the detective. After they'd finished their second drink they returned to the seating area by Gate 32C to wait with the other now very disgruntled passengers. They sat in seats across from one another and Kate had pulled a book—notably not one of his—from her bag while he'd turned to his iPhone for entertainment. "What?"

She nodded towards the desk beside the sign still displaying FLIGHT DELAYED. "It's eight o'clock and the second gate attendant just walked away."

Castle glanced over to the desk in question and observed that only the fifty-something woman with graying hair and a bright red hairband remained. To him, this did not mean too much as the missing gate attendant could merely have been taking a bathroom break. "So?"

"If our plane is supposed to depart at 8:15 like the sign says we should already be on it."

Castle pressed his lips together and observed his surroundings with a bit more attention to detail. The detective had a valid point; typically, planes began boarding no less than twenty minutes before departure. So their plane wouldn't take off immediately at 8:15. What did another few minutes matter? There was no indication that they would be delayed much beyond 8:15 except—shit. "Is…" He craned his neck and half stood from his seat, attempting to see out the terminal windows. "Is the plane even at the gate yet? I'm not…" His voice drifted off when he turned back to his companion and saw her pointed stare. "Okay, yes, I see your point. We're probably not leaving at 8:15."

She clicked her tongue and stuffed her book back into her bag, clearly irritated. "We're probably not leaving at 9:15 at the rate this is going."

"Don't be a pessimist."

"I'm being a realist."

"Po-tay-to, po-tah-to," he responded. Then, after a beat added, "Should I go and ask?"

"That lady just did a few minutes ago. They told her they were keeping us up to date."

The writer slipped his cell phone back into his pocket and straightened his blazer. Running his left hand through his hair, making sure it was well combed back, he said, "But that lady was not Richard Castle."

A derisive laugh escaped the detective's lips. "Oh."

He pursed his lips at her and her judgement of his tactics. "There's no need for eye rolling Beckett. I'm sure you could get the information if you flash your badge."

"No, I couldn't, because I wouldn't do that."

He merely shrugged. "Then I'm asking." Surely with a smile and some well-placed compliments sprinkled with politeness he could get some information out of the gate agent. With the time at 8:03 they were clearly not taking off on time, so any reasonable update would be welcome. Confident he could acquire the information he needed—he rarely failed at such a task—Castle stood, adjusted his blazer one last time, and headed towards the ticket desk.

* * *

Kate glanced up with minimal interest when her former colleague returned to his seat several minutes later. From his expression she could tell he was about to spill his discoveries, so she merely changed her expression to one of curiosity rather than one of boredom and he slid to the edge of his plastic seat.

"I have bad news and good news...and then probably more bad news."

Kate merely groaned. She knew—somehow she just knew. This disastrous situation was getting worse by the minute. Propping her chin against her first she sighed. "Our flight is canceled, isn't it?"

He tiled his head to the side and pursed his lips. "And you flip to the last page of a book when you get it, don't you?"

She merely shrugged; there was no sense delaying the inevitable. "Is it really canceled?"

He shook his head. "Not officially… Judith told me that our first plane had to make an unplanned landing in Buffalo due to a passenger emergency-"

"What does that mean?" Kate interrupted.

"She wouldn't tell me," the writer continued. "Anyway, they found us a second plane; it should be here in about twenty minutes. Unfortunately the storms around Norfolk have gotten so bad they're not letting any small planes land at the airport."

"And let me guess: our replacement plane is considered a small plane." Kate concluded with a tone of utmost annoyance. When the writer tapped his nose with his index finger and then pointed to her, she let out an audible sound of disgust. "You've got to be frickin' kidding me."

"I am not. Judith thought maybe the storms would be clearing and we could possibly take off by closer to ten p.m."

"This is a disaster." Kate proclaimed. "I can't believe after all this we're going to miss Ryan and Jenny's wedding."

"Says whom?"

Kate blinked at the writer, in no mood for his optimism or irritatingly proper grammar. "Time."

"We have plenty of time!"

"Is that so?" She questioned in a monotone. The way she saw it, the activity at the airport was already winding down. JFK's other terminals might have still had incoming and departing flights, but their corner of Terminal 8 was empty, save the increasingly unhappy group bound for Norfolk. If their plane could not be guaranteed to take off by ten or shortly thereafter, Kate was certain the flight would be scrapped, and then they would be screwed.

"Sure. The wedding isn't until noon—that's over fifteen hours from now. The flight barely takes ninety minutes. Plenty of time."

"Except…no." While technically he was correct that a ninety minute journey could be taken multiple times over in a fifteen hour window, that wasn't how air travel worked. If their plane wasn't ready until two a.m. the airline wouldn't allow it to take off at that hour; that simply wasn't done. "If we don't fly out soon, we're not going."

The writer was silent for a moment as he thought. "Maybe there's a six or seven o'clock one tomorrow morning. We'd still have more than enough time to get to the hotel and ceremony on one of those flights."

"Which might not even exist." She snipped at him. Then, shaking her head she realized their conversation was not only getting them nowhere, but causing her to become progressively more annoyed in the process. Pushing herself into a standing position with her hands against her thighs she said, "I need to go for a walk."

He bobbed his head, and when she reached for the handle on her carry-on bag said, "You can leave that if you want; I'll watch it for you."

"Oh, um." She slowly withdrew her hand from the extended handle on the roller bag and turned to pick up her purse instead. "Okay. Thanks Castle."

He grinned. "No problem at all, Beckett."

Slinging her purse over her shoulder, she shook her head slightly as she walked away. In the year since she'd see him, she could safely say that Castle hadn't changed one bit. He was still irritating and yet…oddly charming. His kindness threw her off guard. She wanted to be permanently annoyed with him; permanently at odds, but he was making it impossible with his silly theories, optimism, and gentlemanliness. Damn him for the way he got under her skin.

Castle was yet another reason their plane needed to arrive and depart as quickly as possible. The less time she spent around him the better. She was not going to let him weasel his way back into her life—not this time.


	3. Chapter 3

**Chapter Three**

"Attention American Airlines passengers, we have a special announcement for the passengers scheduled on Flight 197 to Norfolk, VA."

"And here we go…" Kate muttered under her breath when she heard the pleasant voice of Judith, the gate attendant, filtering over the airport loudspeakers. This was it: the announcement she had been expecting for well over an hour. Their flight was almost certainly canceled.

Approximately half an hour earlier, after she'd returned from her I-need-a-Castle-break walk around the terminal, Kate had been quietly reading her book when the writer began incessantly poking her kneecap from across the aisle. When she looked up, infuriated, he pointed towards the terminal windows. There, the blinking lights of a plane taxiing to their gate could be seen. "See Beckett," the writer said proudly. "I told you we'd make it. I bet we'll be in the air in twenty minutes!" In hindsight, she should have taken the bet, because they remained on solid ground.

When Kate watched the exhausted looking flight crew exit the plane towing multiple bags of luggage each, she glanced around thinking—hoping—a replacement crew would be waiting nearby, but she saw none. This she knew to be the kiss of death. They were not flying out that night—there was just no way—but her partner remained adamant they would.

As time passed and no announcement came from the gate agents, she could tell the writer was becoming a bit more anxious. Even Kate had to admit to it being incredibly odd. The plane outside could clearly be seen from the gate area and everyone was wondering what was going on. She watched a few people go up to Judith and ask, but each time the airline employee gave the same response: she would update them as soon as she could. Definitely a bad sign.

"American Airlines offers its sincerest apologies, but we are unfortunately going to be canceling Flight 197 due to lack of flight crew."

A groan and several curses rose from the crowd. Kate shot the writer an I-told-you-so look, but took no joy in it. They were, in all likelihood, going to miss Ryan's wedding, which was truly unfortunate, but if they got lucky (and it seemed they were due some luck given everything that happened that day) they would still make it to Virginia Beach in time for the reception, which all things considered was better than nothing.

The overhead announcement continued with: "The good news is that you've all been automatically rebooked onto a new flight departing at 10 a.m. tomorrow morning. If anyone has checked any luggage onto the flight, you will need to collect that at baggage claim this evening and re-check it tomorrow morning. If there are passengers with questions about the rebooking we ask that you please line up in front of the desk and myself or my colleague will be happy to assist you."

Unsurprisingly, there was a rush of passengers moving towards the desk where Judith sat. Kate stood more slowly, folded her arms over her chest, and gazed over at the writer with a defeated expression. "I can't believe we're not going to make it."

The writer skimmed his fingertips over his chin. "Well, unfortunately, taking off here at ten won't get us there in time for the wedding, but maybe there's another flight out of Newark or LaGuardia we can take."

She blinked at him as though he suggested using a rocket pack strapped to their backs to travel. "It's after nine, Castle; nothing else is going to be leaving tonight."

"No, no—tomorrow morning." He clarified. He picked up his bag and tucked his iPad under his arm while nodding to her bag and encouraging her to do the same. As they made their way to the line turned cluster of people due to limited space in the seating area, he said, "We can take anything that departs by nine a.m."

Kate quickly did the calculations of her head of the flight time and driving time to Virginia Beach. "That would be incredibly tight." So tight, in fact, they would be forced to wear their wedding garb on the plane and might only get a pre-ceremony freshening-up-in-the-bathroom break if they drove above the speed limit.

"Yes, but we'd still make it. We just have to hope there's a flight." With that, he pulled his phone from his pocket and began scrolling through the screen with his thumb, taping things occasionally.

Glancing down at the device, Kate saw he had the American Airlines app open and snipped, "Oh, aren't you going to get your buddy Judith to help with that?" He raised his eyes to gaze at her for a millisecond and then turned back to her phone. Kate huffed and gripped onto the handle of her luggage a bit too tightly.

She was in a terrible mood and about to become completely unapologetic about being unpleasant to everyone around her. She was tired and frustrated that she had rushed around all day only to have it all fall apart. The plane was right there—right there! There had to be a flight crew somewhere in the city. And if there wasn't one that night, why did their flight have to be at ten a.m.? What was wrong with eight?

To further add insult to injury, she had to stand in a god-awful long line with the writer for god only knew how long until they would ultimately be told that sorry, no other flights would be arriving in Norfolk before the scheduled one at ten a.m. It was, after all, _Norfolk_ —hardly a major city or a frequently traveled destination. Simply put: they were screwed.

* * *

They were going to get a flight—they were absolutely, most definitely going to get a flight. Castle just didn't know which flight since the American Airlines app kept crashing. From what he could tell, there wasn't an American Airlines flight to Norfolk out of LaGuardia or Newark, but that didn't mean there wasn't one on another airline. He had encountered incidents like this occasionally during his book tours and they always worked themselves out. Sometimes they just needed a little bit of…encouragement, which was why he planned on flashing his pearly whites to Judith just as soon as they-

"Next!"

Shit. Castle and Kate were next in line, but it was the half-asleep looking man to Judith's left that called for the next waiting passenger. Judith was still busy talking with an older couple wearing matching Hawaiian shirts. No! This was definitely not part of his plan!

"Sir, I said next," the male gate attendant said, his impatience showing.

Plastering on a smile, Castle stepped over to the counter beside Judith. He glanced back to see that Kate had followed him and she had, before turning forward again. He read the name Timothy off the gate attendant's name tag and briefly wondered why he didn't go by a nickname, but then pushed such thoughts from his mind; there wasn't time for that.

"Good evening, we're curious about possibly getting on another flight leaving out of a different airport?"

From the expression on Timothy's face, Castle would have thought he asked the man to drive them to Virginia himself, but he tried not to let the smile on his face falter. Timothy let out an irritated sigh, turned to his computer monitor and began tapping against the computer keys. "Did you and your companion book together?"

"Ah, no, but we are trying to get to the same wedding."

Timothy's eyes flicked towards the writer, he sighed again, and then turned back towards his computer monitor. "Name?"

"Castle; Richard Castle."

"You're booked on the ten a.m. flight tomorrow, Mr. Castle."

"Yes, I know that, but we were hoping to get something that leaves earlier. Perhaps out of Newark?"

"I don't have anything out of Newark leaving earlier than ten."

The writer thought for a moment before suggesting, "Philadelphia?" It was a bit further away, but an extra hour on a train in the morning seemed a worthy trade-off to making it to Ryan's wedding on time.

"There's a flight out of Philadelphia at 9:35-"

"Oh!" Castel's spirits immediately lifted. It would be tight— _incredibly_ tight—but they could make it to the wedding on time.

"-but it's not direct."

Again, Castle's chest deflated. "Oh." So much for that hope.

"There aren't any other flights?" Kate asked, chiming in for the first time since stepping up to the desk.

Timothy looked at her, nonplussed. "I do not see any flights with available seats." He informed her with a bit more attitude than he probably should have used. Castle cringed internally as she took a step closer to the desk and pounded her palm against it.

"This is ridiculous! How can there not be any other flights?"

Tying his best at damage control, Castle inched closer to his irate cohort while simultaneously dipping his hand into his blazer pocket in search of his wallet. "I'm sorry, sir my girlfriend is just a little over-tired." He smiled at her delicately and the look she gave him could have murdered him in a second had she possessed laser vision. As casually as ever, he plucked a hundred dollar bill from his wallet and nonchalantly slid it across the counter. Timothy's eyes flicked down towards Benjamin Franklin's face and then back up at the writer. "Are you sure there's nothing you can do?"

"Sir, we do not accept bribes," Timothy said, his voice as clipped as ever. "Now, if you will please step aside, I'm going to help the next passenger."

* * *

"You're an idiot." Kate hissed to her companion the moment they stepped away from the American Airlines gate. She honestly wasn't sure what made her angrier: his attempt at bribery in front of her, a police officer, or his off the cuff girlfriend comment. Definitely the second one. Her—Richard Castle's girlfriend? That would be the day pigs flew through a frozen hell. It was a comment she could have murdered him for, but unfortunately she could not do that at the airport; there were too many security cameras and she'd definitely get caught.

The writer stopped walking and turned to face her. "I'm not."

"You are!" She returned. Then, clicking her tongue with disgust, she added, "I cannot believe after all this we're going to miss the wedding."

"We're not."

Kate skimmed her hand over her brow. "Castle, I'm really not-"

"We're going to drive!"

Not sure she'd heard him correctly Kate lowered her hand and gazed up at the writer. He could not have smiled more broadly if he had just won an Olympic gold medal. Thrown off by his pride in a situation that made no logical sense, she responded with, "Excuse me?"

"Drive—we're going to drive." He repeated. "It should only take us five hours or so."

"So we'll get there at 3 am?!" She practically squealed. Of all the dumb, ridiculous, outlandish ideas the writer had cooked up over their nine month partnership this one was by far the worst. Driving all through the night? Being trapped in a car with Castle? She couldn't even fathom how terrible that would be!

"Better than not getting there at all. C'mon Beckett what do you say? Road trip!"

"Absolutely not." She replied. "We'll just…we'll just call Espo, tell him what happened so they're not wondering where we are, and then we'll take the ten a.m. flight. We'll…we'll make it in time for the reception and that'll have to be good enough."

The situation was one hundred percent beyond their control. When it came to passenger emergencies, the weather, and flight crews they were powerless. Had she not had the court time that morning, she would have taken and earlier flight and everything would have been fine, but her job came first; seeking justice came first. Ryan and Jenny would understand.

"Good enough! Good enough!?" The writer's incredulous shriek echoed off the airport's tile floor. "This is Kevin Ryan—taking the ten a.m. flight is not _good enough_ —not when we can make it if we drive! How bad are you going to feel when you walk into the reception, people ask where you were, and you say, 'I didn't feel like driving.'"

Kate nearly growled at him. "I seriously hope you're not implying that I'm too lazy to attend my friend's wedding simply because I do not want to _drive through the entire night_ to get there."

Yep, there she was—right back to hating the sight of him. Their evening together—absurd as it was—really had not been that bad. They had a meal, a few drinks, he hadn't said anything that made her want to pull out her gun and shoot him…and then seemingly out of the blue he'd Castle-ed everything up again. Unbelievable. Yet, she should have expected it.

Kate made to push her way past the writer, but he stopped her, sliding his hand beneath her bicep. "Wait no—no I'm sorry. That is not what I was implying. Beckett c'mon," he said as she continued to fight to release herself from his hand. "I'm sorry, okay? Of course you don't have to drive, but don't you want to make it to the ceremony? I think you'll regret it if you don't go."

Still angry with him, Kate barley softened her expression.

The writer continued. "Let me put it to you this way: I'm going to drive and I'd like you to come with me."

Finally wrenching her arm from his grasp, Kate stomped her feet childishly and groaned. He really was tying her hands. If he drove and she stuck around for the ten a.m. flight, she'd look like an idiot when she arrived for the reception. Yet, at the same time, if she agreed to go with him, she would be trapped in an enclosed space with Richard Castle for several hours.

God, was she really considering this?

Taking a half step back, Kate took in a deep breath and seriously considered her options. If she chose to drive with Castle their tip would take most of the night, meaning she would get little if any sleep. This was not unusual for her since she worked nights and had pulled many a double shift—especially back in her beat cop days—but of course she wanted to avoid being up for two days straight if at all possible. Oppositely, if she went home then, she would be able to get at least six hours of sleep before she needed to turn around and come back to the airport. But would she really sleep knowing that Castle was making his way down the eastern seaboard?

In the end, it seemed she had no choice.

"God. Fine."

The writer's face exploded with glee and he clapped his hands. "Yes! You won't regret this Beckett."

"Oh I think I might."

He gave her a pointed look. "I'm serious—this is going to be fun. I'm excellent to road trip with."

"I can only imagine." She commented before pulling out her phone to get a more accurate picture of where their drive would take them and the exact duration of the trip. She tapped their final destination into Google maps, waited for the directions to load, and then gasped. "Castle! It's going to take over seven hours!" So much for getting any sleep that night….

He stepped around behind her so he could look down over her shoulder at the screen on her phone. "Really? Hmm…that's unfortunate, but I bet we can shave at least an hour off that if we drive fast enough."

She shot him an incredulous look not sure what shocked her more in that moment: his caviler attitude about their safety or, once again, his absolute lack of concern about breaking the law in the presence of a police officer. "Castle. There are storms all up and down the coast. I'd like to actually make it to the wedding alive if we're going to go to the trouble of driving."

"Fair enough…At least we can switch off driving so we can get a nap in." He adjusted the strap on the bag slung over his shoulder before taking two steps in the direction of the terminal exit. "C'mon; let's go before anyone else gets the same idea and all the rental cars are spoken for—unless you want to go back to my place and we'll go in my car."

Kate laughed at the notion of traversing several states in the writer's hundred thousand dollar sports car. Though she had never rode in a vehicle that lavish, she did not imagine they were very comfortable for road tripping—not to mention their lack of fuel efficiency. "Seven hours in a Ferrari? I don't think so."

He gave her an impatient expression. "I have a regular car, too."

"Of course you do." She quipped. Why did that not surprise her? Besides, even if he had the most comfortable car in the world, he was forgetting about the glaringly obvious impracticality of driving his own vehicle. "But if we take your car then we have to drive back—well, you will anyway."

The writer's brow rose and then he pointed at her. "Excellent point. To the rental place it is!"

"Hang on." She reached out and grabbed his arm before he could escape again. "We're still scheduled on a flight for tomorrow morning—we should probably do something about that. Besides." She sighed and looked down at herself. Sitting on a plane for ninety minutes in her work-wear was one thing, but seven hours in a car? No way. "If I have to be in a car for that long I'd prefer not to be dressed like this."

The writer nodded seemingly agreeing to their implied plans. "You go change; I'll cancel our tickets. Then, we'll go find a car and we'll be on our way in no time."

"Can't wait." She spoke under her breath while she turned to walk towards the restroom all the while wondering just how far they'd drive before she began to wish she was on the ten a.m. flight.

* * *

 **A/N: Thank you all so much for your reviews & follows - I am so glad you're enjoying this story!**

By the way, this is at least in part inspired by a real flight i had this summer when it kept getting delayed again and again. We ended up taking off 4 hours late so we didn't have to drive, which was good because we couldn't have (the flight was from the USA to the UK)


	4. Chapter 4

**Chapter Four**

With a sigh, Kate Beckett gazed out the car window at the street lamps zooming by overhead. She was not a particularly good passenger; never had been, but even more so since she became a cop. But this? This was just bizarre. Never had she been in a car before when Castle was the one driving, but he had insisted on taking the first leg of their journey, so she let him, though at the time she had thought relinquishing control of the wheel would be easier.

At that hour, even on a Friday night, the traffic was minimal. They had made it through Brooklyn and across Staten Island, slowing down only minimally. Now, judging by the exit signs they passed, they were about a third of the way through New Jersey.

As she sat with little else to do, Kate gazed over at the writer. He had shed his blazer and rolled up the sleeves of his shirt to the elbows when he got in the car. Five minutes into their drive he began complaining about the car having a stuffy smell and subsequently turned the air conditioning on, though it wasn't necessary. Kate could see on the car's dash that the outside temperature was a pleasant sixty-one degrees. The Toyota Corolla they rented seemed quite new and she could not detect any malodors, so she thought perhaps Castle just wanted the air on because he felt warm while driving. This didn't bother her, though; she shut the air vents directly in front of her and remained at an acceptable temperature.

As her eyes scanned down the length of his arm she saw that his right hand rested casually atop the wheel while his left rested at the very edge of the bottom. Just then they came upon a slow driver so Castle glanced over his left shoulder, skimmed his left hand up to turn on his signal, and then eased into the left lane to pass the dawdling car. As she watched his left hand return to its position, the skin at the back of Kate's neck prickled and she inhaled sharply.

Shit! She wasn't attracted to Castle, was she? No; of course not. That was ridiculous. She wasn't attracted to him—he was irritating, arrogant and a ridiculous man-child. He just happened to have very strong, broad, capable hands. Hands that he used to write his many novels. Hands that he also could use to-

No. No, no. Castle was not the only man in the world who hand strong hands and she was simply overtired and half delirious from their trying evening. She just needed to—wait, what was Castle doing? He had moved back from the passing lane to the regular right lane, but was now signaling to the right again and moving into a lane labeled "Service Plaza Exit Only."

"What are you doing?" she asked. She could hardly believe he had to use the restroom; they had only been in the car for forty-five minutes! And the car couldn't be in need of gas—rental cars always came with full tanks.

"Getting some snacks."

"Snacks!" She repeated, half shocked, half annoyed.

"Of course," he said with a tone that could not have indicated more how obvious his decision was. He drove their vehicle cautiously through the rest stop's parking area and pulled into one of the spaces out front of the lone building, where just two other cars were parked at that hour. "You can't road trip without snacks, Beckett. What do you want?"

"Nothing."

He bobbed his head as he pulled the keys from the ignition. "So just coffee then?"

"No—no coffee."

Castle looked at her as though she'd grown a second head. "No coffee?"

"No."

"Why?"

She groaned at his inability to accept her answer—did she really have to give that graphic of a reason why? Keeping thing vague, she said, "Because if we're going to drive over seven hours, I want to stop as little as possible."

Fortunately, he caught her implication. "Limited bathroom breaks; got it. No coffee. You sure you don't want any pretzels or anything?"

"Castle!" She snipped. "We're wasting time. Just get your snacks—and leave the keys."

The writer gazed down at the key ring in his palm and then back up at her tentatively. "You're not going to-"

"I'm obviously not going to drive away and leave you here because we are not in high school."

He gave a conceding nod, dropped the keys into an empty cup holder in the console, and then left the vehicle. Kate unbuckled her seatbelt, got out of the car, and walked around to the driver's side. She was definitely not a good passenger. Driving would make the time pass more quickly—or so she hoped—and would also afford the writer an opportunity to munch on his precious snacks. As an added bonus, Driving would keep her focus on the road and not the man in the seat beside her. She had thought about him for quite enough that day; she definitely needed a break. Six and a half hours to go.

* * *

Exiting the convenience store portion of the rest stop with a plastic bag of treasures hanging limply in his left hand, Richard Castle breathed in deeply the crisp night air. Crazy as it seemed, he was almost looking forward to spending the night driving with the lovely detective. True, the night was just beginning and he was sure weariness would eventually set in, but he was getting to spend an unexpected additional five hours in her presence and he certainly would not complain about that.

Up to that point she had been a little bit snippy with him, but he could not say he blamed her. The evening certainly had not turned out how any of them expected and she was most likely tired and a bit drained from everything that had happened before she arrived at the airport that evening, but he hoped she would be able to relax as he drove. With her relaxation he hoped came a more positive attitude towards him. Then maybe they really could end the weekend on a positive note.

As he approached the car, Castle's eyes scanned the parking lot and he did not pay close attention to the silver vehicle he approached. As such, he walked towards the driver's side door without question. Just a foot from the vehicle he look down and was almost shocked to see the detective sitting in his former seat. He froze and they stared at each other for ten seconds before she pointed her index finger towards the passenger side. Somewhat reluctantly, he changed course and took his new seat.

"You want to drive, I assume."

"Yes."

She gave no more explanation and instead stuffed the key back into the ignition, turned the vehicle on and backed out of their parking space. Deciding it was wise to pick his battles Castle buckled his seatbelt and then reached into the plastic bag of goodies now resting by his feet. "I've got slim jims, chips, and two Snickers bars. Want one?"

"No, thank you."

He pressed his lips together, thinking. From what he saw, she had not eaten since their two beers and sandwiches at dinner, over four hours earlier. Back when he shadowed her and they stayed up late into the night with a case, Kate was usually snacking. Generally it was light finger food like pretzels or peanuts, but occasionally, depending on the seriousness of the case, they would branch out to something more substantial like eggrolls. Rarely could he recall an all-nighter that didn't involve food, and he didn't see why this should be any different.

"You sure? You shouldn't drive hungry. Or hangry, as the case may be."

She glanced at him briefly before turning back to focus on the New Jersey Turnpike in front of her. A moment later she sighed, lifted her right hand off the wheel, and held it out towards him, palm facing up. He quickly placed the Snickers bar in her hand and she thanked him softly.

Now quite pleased with himself, Castle tore open a Slim Jim, bit off a rather large piece, and leaned back in his seat. "So what should we talk about?" They had not yet done much talking since getting in the rental. Castle had turned on the radio to a news station when they got in the car and he'd mostly been focusing on taking the right exists since he had never driven that exact route before. For the next several hours, though, they would be cruising down I-95, which left plenty of room for talking.

"Nothing."

He was undeterred by her negative response. "Nah c'mon we gotta talk about something. How about the past year? Dating anyone?" Castle was not sure why that question popped out of his lips first, as it was the one he was least interested in knowing the answer to. Well, least interested if her answer was yes. If it was no…

 _What are you thinking, Idiot?_ He chastised himself. The best he could ever hope for after everything that had happened—after he had dove into her mother's case against her wishes and subsequently burned their partnership and whatever relationship they'd managed to forge to the ground—was that she did not outwardly hate him, but regarded him as a casual acquaintance. As much as the concept of something more intimate with the detective intrigued him, he feared that ship had set sail permanently.

"No." Her answer was short and to the point, but it made him smile.

"Me neither." Then, not wanting her to think he'd spent the prior year sitting in his underwear in his office, wallowing in his failure (which in actuality was not too far from the truth), he hastily added, "I mean, I went on dates of course, but nothing really-"

"Castle."

"Yeah?"

"New subject."

The writer bobbed his head. Okay, no relationship talk. That subject clearly resided inside the iron walls that surrounded her and her emotions. "Okay…tell me about your last road trip." Travel was sure to be benign enough topic for her.

As she passed a slower vehicle she skimmed her hands down the wheel so they rested closer to the bottom. Without looking at him she said, "I…I don't think I've been on a road trip."

Castle gasped and nearly choked on the hunk of Slim Jim he was chewing. He shifted in his seat and gaped at her. "No road trip!"

"It's not that big of a deal."

"But road trips are so fun!"

Finally, she glanced at him, slightly perturbed. "You act like it's completely shocking yet you also grew up in Manhattan. How many road trips have you taken?"

"You make a valid point, but I have been on a few." As a Manhattanite, he, like presumably she, did not have frequent access to vehicles. Sure, he took a taxi now and then, but as money was tight growing up, he mostly used the subway, buses, or walking to transport himself. He had been in a private car on occasion, but the first times he really remembered were his days at boarding school beginning when he was fourteen. The parent of one of his much wealthier friends would occasionally drive them around, but that was only around the city—one to long island. His first road trip came a few years later. "Starting when I was seventeen."

"How? Did you steal a car?"

"No."

"Oh, right, you only steal horses."

His eyes grew wide at her below-the-belt comment. He should have been annoyed, but as it was her first attempt at humor that evening, he took it in stride. "Funny, Beckett, but no. It was the summer between junior and senior years of high school for me. A friend's older brother had his license and we drove to Boston; it was fun." "Fun" until the drive home when they got into an accident and feared they'd have to hitchhike their way back to the city, but that was all part of the adventure.

The detective was silent for almost a full minute before she offered, "I drove with my aunt and cousin to Colonial Williamsburg once."

"Ohh!" Castle's tone brightened. "That's a road trip!"

"Not really; I was twelve."

He shrugged. The trip would have technically qualified, though the concept of a road trip did generally imply that everyone in the vehicle was an adult or at least close to being one. "Did you at least have a nice time?"

"I got food poisoning."

Castle rolled his eyes. "You're killing the conversation here, Beckett."

"Then maybe we should just turn on the radio." With that, she reached over and punched the "on" button beneath the radio display.

* * *

"You know…I really think we should stop." Castle gazed tentatively over at the detective, hating to even make such a statement, but it was becoming a necessity as he could no longer see the lines on the road and he doubted she could either.

They had been traveling for almost six hours. An hour prior, just shortly after they made a bathroom and gasoline pit stop, rain had begun. At first it was just a nuisance—enough to need windshield wipers on the lowest setting, but not really slowing their progress any. The further they drove into Virginia, however, the worse it became.

Soon their pace slowed to right at the speed limit, then below it. For the prior twenty minutes, the rain had been driving so hard that the highest windshield wiper setting—the one Castle referred to as warp speed—barely made a dent in the deluge assaulting the front of their vehicle. The storm had also been coupled with lightning and thunder, meaning their pace had been further slowed.

Using the weather app on his phone, Castle took note that the severe storms were supposed to last well into the morning which meant that they would not simply drive out of them, as Kate continually suggested. He had offered to switch places with her at the rest stop, but she refused, saying she preferred to be the one pressing on and she didn't need to sleep. He very much doubted that, but also did not want to argue with her while she was already in an edgy state.

"If we stop we won't make it," she said, just as he predicted she would. Luckily, he was prepared with a defense.

"We also won't make it if we die in a horrible crash."

"Are you questioning my driving skills, Castle?" she sniped.

"Of course not, just the severity of this storm. Plus what's to say another driver doesn't lose control and hit us?" She remained silent, so he tried a different argument. "Think about it this way: you're barely going twenty-five miles an hour right now, which is slowing our progress. We've got about two and a half hours to go at regular highway speeds. If we stop at a motel, sleep for three, three and a half hours, and get up and go, we'll still make it there in plenty of time and we'll probably feel better."

Kate didn't take her eyes from the road, but she did grumble something and grip the wheel a bit tighter.

"What was that?" he asked, not having heard her clearly.

"Nothing." She sighed dramatically. "It just throws me off when you make a valid, rational comment."

Had he been more lucid, he would have been perturbed, but in his delirious state he laughed. "I have been known to have a good point or two here and there. It's just—oh!" He pointed at the sign that passed by their car window. "That sign says the next exit has a motel. Let's get off here."

Wearily, she nodded her head. "Fine."

Turning to her, he offered a smile. "Don't worry Beckett; we're totally going to make it."

* * *

Sitting in a car outside the Good Sleep Motel just north of Fredericksburg, Virginia, Kate gazed wearily at the clock on the car's dashboard and watched it turn from 3:59 to 4:00. Good lord was she tired. She had not felt it too much on the road, but now that they had stopped and she was waiting for Castle to emerge from the motel office, it hit her like a bag of bricks.

She had previously pulled all-nighters—many, in fact, but in the vast majority of those instances the adrenaline of a case kept her moving, kept her motivated. Somehow, when it came to something for her own life, for her personal happiness or enjoyment, she always found herself less driven. Had she not been so bone-tired, she might have thought about why that was or why she should try and change it.

Though her chin sank steadily towards her chest, when the writer hurried out of the motel office, blazer held up over his head to evade the rain, she sat up a bit straighter and rubbed her hands down her face. Hopefully his return would mean she would be lying down with her head on a mediocre pillow in less than ten minutes. Then again, with the way the trip was going, she didn't want to get too hopeful.

When the writer opened the passenger side door, water began funneling inside the vehicle and Kate opened her mouth to scold him until she remembered their car was not her cruiser. It was a rental and therefore she did not care if the seats got watermarked. Still, she cringed; it was quite a bit of water.

"Well." He huffed and pulled the door shut, wiping his drenched hand on his pants. "I got us a room."

" _A_ room?" She repeated, now feeling more alert in the form of annoyance. "Just one?" Damn it. She had not even considered the need to remind him to get two rooms. Of course. Of course he would just assume they're staying together. Ridiculous, self-centered, idiotic man. "Castle-"

"Hang on." He held up one hand to stop her. "Before you berate me let me explain: the motel is being renovated. They only have one room available right now—but!—it has two double beds."

Without a second thought Kate reached her hand for the keys in the console cup holder. "We need to find another motel."

"Beckett." Castle placed his hand over hers to prevent her from using the keys; she glared at him. "C'mon. If we have to search for another hotel it'll take us at least half an hour—or more. Do you really want to lose sleep just because you don't want to lie down for three hours in the bed next to mine?"

The detective huffed. There he was again—being rational. It was really getting disturbing. Why couldn't he go back to just spitting out outlandish theories—like how much easier it would be for them to get the Virginia Beach if they just hitched a ride on a UFO? If he did that, it would be easier for her to keep him away; to brush him off as that crazy guy she used to work with. If it was being a good partner, she had less of a reason to push him away. Well, except for that really big thing.

"I hope you know how much it pains me to say this but: you're totally right."

The writer grinned and passed over a silver key on a white keychain that had, in black marker, the number 103 scrawled on it. "It's just over there. Go ahead and run in; I'm already wet so I'll get the bags."

"I—oh. Thank you." There he went again—surprising her. Twice in the span of less than a minute! She really needed to get to bed before she started to be glad to be on the road trip with him.

After passing the keys to her companion so he could get their bags from the trunk, Kate gripped the door handle and steeled herself for her race through the torrents of rain. She took a deep breath and popped open the door, trying to hurry as much as she could, but ended up being tangled up in the seatbelt, delaying her progress by ten seconds. By the time she reached the door to 103, she was drenched to the skin. And, unfortunately, the sticky lock to 103—and its lack of awning or overhang to protect her from the elements—made her even wetter.

Finally, after pushing open the door, Kate used both hands to rake her hair back from where it was sticking to her face. When she caught sight of their room, she groaned. She had not thought to ask Castle if their room was pre- or post-renovation. One look around told her it was the former. To put it simply: the motel had clearly been built in the 1970's and not much in the room had changed since—from the mustard-colored draperies to the matching shag carpet.

"Woah-ho. Totally retro!" The writer commented as he tumbled into the room behind Kate with both pieces of their luggage.

She turned to him and sighed, too tired to filter any of her comments. "At this point, I'm too tired to care."

"Sounds about right." With that, he passed over her roller bag and she thanked him. He nodded towards the door at the opposite end of the room. "Ladies first into the bathroom."

"Oh, um, thanks Castle; I won't be long."

* * *

Ten minutes later, her teeth brushed and her face wiped down with a washcloth she hoped was meant to be a tan color and not just a white one that had gone dingy with four decades of use, Kate attempted to get comfortable beneath scratchy sheets. Fortunately their room, which Castle had mentioned was sixty-nine dollars for the night, was not one she would be in for long. She was just about to shut her eyes when she remembered the need to set an alarm, for surely her body would crave more sleep than their timeline would allow.

Pushing herself upright, she groped for her cell phone on the nightstand. After taping the unlock code, she brought up the clock app and stared at the time, debating the best course of action. If the wedding was at noon, they needed to comfortably be ready by eleven-thirty. She had already given up on the idea of curling or fixing her hair in any sort of fancy way, but she still needed a chance to shower and make herself reasonably presentable. That would take at least an hour. If Castle was correct and it would take approximately two and a half hours to reach their destination, they needed to be on the road no later than seven thirty, so she set the alarm for seven fifteen. Normally, she would have found that timeframe a little tight, but it was after four in the morning and she wanted at least three hours sleep, even if she wouldn't get more than a minute more.

After setting the alarm and pressing 'save' her phone pointed out that her alarm was set to go off in three hours and eight minutes. "Thanks," she said to it, sarcasm dripping in her tone. With that, she place her phone back on the nightstand and flopped down against the pillow, turning away from the bathroom and the nightstand lamp, at that point the only source of light in the room.

The pillow was lumpy. Perfect.

She had barely shut her eyes when she heard the bathroom door open. The writer asked softly, "Did you set an alarm?" And when she confirmed he thanked her and wished her a good night. A moment later, the room was bathed in darkness and the bed beside her squeaked under the weight of her companion.

The bed continued to squeak as the writer presumably slid under the covers and arranged head against the pillows. Kate expected the squeaking noise to soon stop, but it persisted. As time progressed, the squeaking tone took on a consistent pattern that sounded more like a squeak-sigh. The squeak-sigh repeated at such even intervals it began to sound like the brays of a very displeased donkey. Finally, Kate could take no more.

"Castle!" she snapped at him.

"I'm sorry." He hissed in a half-whisper. "I think my bed is broken."

At this establishment that really was not surprise, however, with less than three hours and eight minutes of sleep remaining, she could not bring herself to care. "That's unfortunate; goodnight."

Though the squeaking subsided for thirty seconds, a moment later it picked up again with a vengeance. She heard the writer huff and preemptively say, "Sorry. Sorry. I'm just trying to make this work—I keep sliding to the middle."

"Then lay in the middle."

"Can't. There's like a spring or something." The squeaking persisted as loudly as ever as he moved about. "Maybe if I just-" He cut off his voice when a loud cracking sound filled the room. Ten second of silence passed before the writer said, "That didn't sound good."

With a loud exhale, Kate rolled over onto her back. She looked towards Castle's side of the room, but could only see the slightest outline of him in the dark room; he appeared to be sitting up in bed. "No, no it didn't." She concluded.

She watched as the writer slid back down against the mattress. His movements caused a resurgence of the squeaking noises, only that time the squeak was coupled with a groan and a grinding sound. The more he moved, the louder the noises became. A second later, there was another loud crack; this coincided with the snapping of Kate's patience.

"Oh for the love of god just…just get in this bed!"

Sharing a bed with Castle was the absolute last thing she wanted to do; however, if she had to listen to one more second of that squeaking bed, their room was going to be a crime scene come morning.

The writer's silhouette popped up. "Really?"

"If it's going to allow me to get any sleep, yes."

She scooted over to the far side of the bed which, mercifully, caused minimal squeaking, and allowed the writer enough room to share with her. Given that the bed was a double and not even a queen, they would surely be in close quarters given his large frame. Yet, she was too tired to care. All she wanted was sleep.

The mattress sunk under his weight as he slid in beside her. She felt his arm graze up against her ass—a move she presumed to be unintentional and a result of the dark room—and gritted her teeth. Oh, yeah, this was a world-class terrible idea, but what other choice did she have?

"Thanks Beckett. I really-"

"Speak again and you sleep on the floor." She threatened.

"Got it. G'night Beckett."

The bed stopped moving as he settled against his pillow. Kate slid herself to the absolute furthest edge of the bed, shut her eyes, and was asleep within moments.

* * *

 _A/N: this chapter resonates with me quite strongly as I just spent last Monday night driving back home from Manhattan at 2 am._

 _Anyway - hope you guys enjoyed it. Just so you know there will be no update this weekend because i will be away._

 _See you again next Wednesday! Thanks!_


	5. Chapter 5

**Chapter Five**

The moment Kate Beckett was aware of being awake, she groaned. Inside her head, her brain throbbed. This, she assumed, was due to the pitiful lack of sleep in combination with the stress of the prior day. Her neck and shoulders also ached, though that pain could have either be from the tension of driving for nearly five hours in a row, longer than she had ever driven in one sitting before, or because of the poor mattress and pillow. Or both.

Fighting sleep as much as she could, Kate snuggled up against her pillow and tried to bring her arm in closer to her body, but she could not as it was hooked around a large object. That was odd. The more conscious she became, she realized her head was also resting against a large object—presumably the same one. That was very odd.

Kate spread her fingers and skimmed her hand over the object in question. It was warm and solid, yet moved at rhythmic intervals. A chest—it was someone's chest, but how was that even—

"Shit." Kate hissed under her breath and her eyes popped open. Much to her horror, she realized that at some point in the night she had snuggled against Castle. He remained lying on his back on his side of their tight quarters, but she had shifted over, curled against him and draped her arm over her chest. _Shit_.

Okay, okay—she could not panic. Maybe he wasn't awake yet. Their alarm had not gone off and so maybe he was still asleep. If he was still asleep she could move and he would never know she had been there and they could move on like nothing had happened.

As though a sudden movement would cause a bomb beneath the bed to detonate, Kate inched her hand back across Castle's chest, dragging it steadily from her shoulder. As she did so, she also rolled her body over so that she lay on her back and could more easily pull her arm free. When her wrist reached the edge of his chest, she lifted her hand up quickly as though trying to pull a white tablecloth off a table without disturbing the plates, silver, or glasses. With this task done, she gazed tentatively up towards the writer's face to see if she had been successful. His dopey grin told her she'd failed.

"Morning."

 _Fuck_.

Kate immediately felt her entire body blush. Shit. Shit. Shit. This was bad—so bad! Castle was awake meaning he had woken and discovered her curled against him. Shit.

"Um, hi." She managed despite wishing she could snap her fingers and immediately turn invisible. That would be the only way to salvage this situation.

He yawned and stretched one hand up over his head, using the other to fluff up his hair and reset the portion that had flopped down against his forehead in the night. The sight of this move caused tingles to flow down Kate's spine and her blush to deepen. Shit, the morning was getting worse—how was that even possible?

"It's, ah, 'bout five after seven. I'm gonna shower quick unless you wanna use the bathroom first?"

Still at a loss of words due to mortification, she shook her head.

He nodded. "'kay. I'll be quick."

With that, the writer swung his legs over the side of the bed, arched his back, and groaned. When he stood, she realized he wore a white t-shirt, and light blue boxer shorts that had some sort of small pattern on them she was too bleary-eyed to discern. As he shuffled towards his luggage, he scratched his side and yawned loudly.

Kate watched until she realized she didn't want to risk being caught, and instead turned her eyes towards the ceiling so as not to tempt herself with more glances at her former partner. Despite her awkward cuddling, waking up beside Castle was not as strange or as uncomfortable as she would have expected. Had they really become that comfortable with each other during their not quite year-long partnership? They had spent a significant amount of time together. More so, a significant amount of stressful time together. She knew a decent amount about him and he…knew what she allowed him to know. Yet, in their year apart, wouldn't some of the closeness they'd foraged have dissipated?

Perhaps, it was that the writer had been correct: he really wasn't a bad companion to road trip with. Yes, he had been irritating and a bit pouty until he'd been allowed to make the radio selection, but his choice wasn't heinous. Other than that, he was considerate, gentlemanly and shockingly respectful when she requested he tone down the chatter.

She had forgotten what it was like to sit beside him for any duration of time, forgotten how they could fall into a comfortable silence quickly without any awkwardness or tension, forgotten how she could ask for his advice on almost anything and he had a strange way of knowing when she needed a joke to lighten the mood and when she was seeking a serious answer. In that way, it was nice having him back in the car with her, and were it not for the fact that he had betrayed her, Kate might have considered restarting their partnership. Unfortunately, he had betrayed her, and that could not simply be forgiven.

"Um, yeah, don't use the shower."

Kate startled when the writer reentered their room; she had fallen back asleep in his five minute absence and thus could only manage, "Huh?"

"You don't want to use the shower. The water smells like…actually, I don't want to think about it."

"And you soaked yourself in it; lovely." She commented.

He shook his head. "Barely. I was in there for about thirty seconds—that's all." With a sigh, he returned to his duffle bag and slipped his nightwear inside. "I don't suppose this place has a continental breakfast."

"If it did, would you want to eat it?"

He turned around and nodded his head at her. "Touché."

Kate sighed and pushed herself out of bed. It was just as well the shower was questionable; she didn't have time to wash and dry her hair appropriately anyway. Besides, she had a feeling she would want a shower after sitting in the stuffy car for another two and a half hours. "We should get moving anyway."

"I'll drive the last leg if that's okay."

She shrugged as she made her way over to her luggage. "Sure. I'll just be a few minutes."

* * *

Loading the luggage into the back of the rental car once more, Castle groaned. How had their suitcases grown in weight over night? Nothing could have reasonably caused such a phenomenon. Clearly, it was in his mind, because his arms felt heavier as well. So did his head. Three hours of sleep would do that to a person. Still, he didn't want to complain. At least the rain had stopped.

As he sat in the driver's seat and waited for Beckett to join him after she returned their room key, Castle reflected on how unexpectedly his morning had begun. Waking up with her cuddled against him was certainly nothing he could have predicted. And her arm draped over his chest? Well that was an added bonus.

Castle liked waking up with the detective by his side. She fit nicely against his arm, was a quiet sleeper, and was a thousand times more attractive to look at than the god awful drapes or whatever the bizarre painting on the wall across from the bed was supposed to be. He liked watching the way her eyelids fluttered and the way her fingertips danced across his ribs gave him chills. Most of all, though, he loved watching the expression of sheer panic cross her face when she realized their compromising position; that had been highly entertaining—not that he could entirely blame her.

Had the situations been reversed and Castle had cuddled against her in the middle of the night, he was certain he would have awoken in some state of anxiety if not for his transgression for the fear at what bodily harm would befall him when his former partner realized he was touching her. Thankfully, she had been the one cuddled against him and subsequently decided to ignore the fact that the incident even happened, which he was fine with. Still, he had to wonder: maybe there was hope for a future partnership for them after all. If that was the case, the thing he was dreading doing needed to be done sooner or later.

A moment later Kate returned to the car, hopped inside and without a word, buckled her seatbelt and placed her purse between her knees. "Any problems?"

She flicked her eyes to him and he immediately saw that she was annoyed. Somewhat tentatively he asked, "What?"

"When I returned the key, the woman working the front desk asked if we used anything from the mini bar and I told her we didn't know there was one and then she looked me up and down and said, 'Not even the rubbers? Hope you're on The Pill.'"

At this most unexpected comment, Castle burst out laughing. He threw his head back, pounded his fist against the steering wheel, and let out a full-bellied howl while Kate protested.

"Castle! This isn't funny!"

"No," he said, swiping the corner of his eye with the knuckle of his index finger, "it's hilarious!"

"It's really, really not!" She insisted, though when the writer looked over at her he saw that her scowl was gone and she instead had a slight smile.

"It absolutely is! And so…bizarre—I don't even know where to begin!"

"Can you begin while driving?"

"Wha—oh yeah. Sure." Sniffing back some tears of laughter, Castle put the keys in the ignition and turned the engine on. After backing out of the parking space and returning to the main road that would take them back to the highway, he said, "For your sake I won't even touch the fact that this woman evidently thought we rented the room just to have sex. Which, I suppose, given the late hour…I can't entirely fault her for."

"I can!" The words nearly exploded out of Kate's mouth. "On an ordinary night, maybe, but in that absurd rainstorm? We can't be the only ones who stopped at a hotel."

"Apparently we're the only ones who stopped at this hotel." The writer pointed out, smirking. "But moving past that—why would condoms be in the mini bar? Wouldn't that…render them ineffective?"

The detective was silent for a moment then let out a blip of laughter. "Huh. I didn't even think of that. But maybe the mini bar wasn't refrigerated—I mean, where even was it? In that ancient TV stand?"

"I guess. Damn now I'm sorry we didn't poke around more. I wonder what else was in the mini bar besides condoms?"

"In that place? Probably…a cigarette lighter and a deck of cards with the Playboy centerfolds of the 1980's."

The writer laughed again. Her guess was as good as any he could have come up with given his tired mind. Before they could make any more jokes, He spotted a delightful sight down the street: a Dunkin' Donuts. "Coffee for the road?"

Unlike the prior night, she did not refuse. Instead, her response was a quick, "Definitely. Do you think they have a gallon size?"

He chuckled. "Maybe; we can ask."

They went through the drive-thru, each ordering a large coffee. Castle also ordered a chocolate donut for himself and an egg and cheese English muffin for Kate at her request. By seven-thirty they were back on the highway headed south. After doing a quick calculation in his head, he turned to his companion and smiled. "We're totally going to make it." Assuming they hit no traffic, they would roll into their hotel around ten a.m. which would give them just enough time to make themselves presentable and then walk the few blocks to the church at which the ceremony was taking place.

"You know I think we are." She responded, smiling as well.

For the next twenty minutes they finished their breakfast and drove in relative silence. As Castle sipped his coffee he prepared himself for how he would make the long overdue apology he owed her. As they still had two hours of driving, he did not want to make things awkward, but given that her mood seemed to be brighter that day (and, quite honestly, the coffee probably aided in that) he knew he had to take a shot. It was the right thing to do.

"Listen, Beckett….I realize a while ago actually that there's something I should have said to you. I should have said it a year ago and that's on me. I was…I was thinking we could talk after the reception or something, but, as long as we're here I want to say that I'm sorry." He momentarily took his eyes off the road to look over at her and found that she was looking at him curiously. His heart fluttered in his chest and he forced himself to continue.

"I'm sorry that I looked into your mother's case when you specifically asked me not to. That was inconsiderate of me and disrespectful of your feelings. As your friend, I should have done ask you asked and for that I'm very sorry."

With his apology complete, he could not help himself from trying to make her see his point of view. "I know this doesn't justify what I did, but I honestly was trying to help you. I saw something I thought was a clue—a clue to help you do what you always wanted: solve the case. I got a little overzealous about it and that's on me, but truly: I was only trying to help. This being said you don't have to worry: I haven't pursued it and I won't."

* * *

At his statement, Kate turned to face forward in her seat and let out a long exhale. Well. She had not been expecting that.

Though more than a little late, his apology was exactly what she had been hoping for from him. It was genuine and acknowledged his mistake and, most importantly, came with the reassurance the actions would not be repeated. She even understood his reasoning.

Once Kate calmed down from her initial fury (which, admittedly, took some time), she knew that Castle's actions had not been malicious. He had not woken up one day and said to himself, "Hmm, how can I make Beckett miserable? Oh I know! I'll dig into her mother's case and rub it in her face." He had probably become overzealous while playing fake-cop and thought maybe he could solve the murder himself or, at the very least, come up with some new clues. She wasn't sure what made her angrier: the fact that he thought he was good enough to find something she hadn't, or the fact that he actually had.

No, she believed the writer's motives had been pure. He wanted to help her and, given that, she would accept his apology and they could move on from the incident.

But…what did moving on mean?

Technically, their partnership was over. After Ryan and Jenny's wedding, when would they see each other again? They would go back to being two people who used to be colleagues just like they had been for the prior year. The only difference was that now if she spotted him on the street she wouldn't run the opposite direction but walk over and say hello. But was that all she wanted? A casual greeting now and then?

"Uh, Beckett?"

She looked over to see him appearing as nervous as she'd ever seen him and, had the moment not already been so serious, she might have laughed. Clearly, he was suffering in her silence probably wondering if his apology had made the situation worse. Had the subject been of a lighter matter, she may have made him suffer a bit longer, but it was not so she decided to put him out of his misery. "Apology accepted, Castle. I appreciate you saying that."

Castle's shoulders rounded and obvious relief crossed his expression.

Dragging her teeth over her bottom lip, Kate added, "And, um, if you wanted to stop by the precinct sometime in the next week or so you could." So it wasn't a full "let's be partners again" invitation, but it was a step in that direction, and that was exactly what she needed, what they needed: a fresh start.

The writer's face lit up as though he had won the lottery. Glancing quickly between her and the road and then back again he gasped, "Really?"

The sheer delight on his face made her laugh, but still she tried to keep things casual. "Yeah I mean…doesn't sound like you're getting very far with your new character. Nikki's probably a better one to stick with, don't you think?"

"I do think! I absolutely think! Oh Beckett! Thank you—you will not regret this!"

On his final point she wasn't so certain. Letting Castle back in to the Twelfth did not just mean letting in his outlandish yet occasionally insightful theories. No, it meant he'd be back to picking at things on her desk, messing with the order of items on her murder board and staring at her for way too long. But…he'd also be there to bring her coffee and help keep her days as least stressful as they could be…so it was a tossup. "Yes, well, we'll see how it goes."

He grinned at her. "It's going to go great—just you wait and see!"

* * *

 _A/N: Thank you all for patiently waiting for your update while i was away for the weekend!_

 _I'm pleased to announce the next fic will be called The Life We Built and i'm not quite prepared to reveal any plotlines yet but I will say it is an AU meeting story_

 _Remember there are only 8 chapters to this story so you'll be seeing it sooner than later!_


	6. Chapter 6

**Chapter Six**

"It's about damn time!"

Kate almost jumped when she heard the words directed at her from across the lobby of the Sheraton Virginia Beach. In her exhausted stupor she almost did not recognize that it was the voice of her partner, Javier Esposito, until he stood in front of her dressed in a tuxedo with a pale blue shirt beneath sans a tie, which he held in his left hand. Gesturing with it he asked, "Where the hell have you two been?"

Kate groaned and pinched the bridge of her nose. "You don't even want to know."

Thought their "We're totally going to make it!" mantra persisted for much of their drive, an accident just outside Norfolk slowed their progress to a near standstill. For twenty-five minutes they inched their way through the snarl, barely traveling more than ten miles per hour at any given moment. They exchanged nervous glances and agonized over the progression of the clock until finally they were able to clear the mess and return to regular highway speeds. Now, they had less than one hour to check in, change, and make it to the church for the ceremony. As if their trip had not been stressful enough.

Kate stopped walking just in front of her colleague and the writer did the same, reaching out to shake his hand as a greeting. He also commented, "It has indeed been a long journey but we have arrived."

The detective gave the writer a side-eye. He made it sound as though they had trekked across the desert on foot in search of a promised land. Instead, they had driven down a very modern highway in a very nice, new vehicle. It could hardly been considered a "journey" but she was too tired to make a comment to the contrary.

"Just in time too." Esposito pointed out. Then, slinging his tie around the back of his neck he said, "I'm heading over to the church now; you guys get checked in. Glad you made it."

They said their goodbyes before walking over to the main front desk area to get checked in. Kate honestly half expected the hotel to tell them that their rooms were no longer available—that despite them having called and warned the hotel that they would be arriving late that the hotel had lost the message or recorded it and correctly and despite it being late-September, the off season for beach goers, their rooms had been given away to wandering travelers. Fortunately that was not the case, but Kate still remained moderately surprised when she was handed her room key; by that point in the trip she was merely conditioned to except catastrophe at every turn.

In a matter of minutes she and Castle were in an elevator on the way up to the second floor where their rooms were. Upon arriving at the floor above, a quick check of the sign on the wall told them that Kate's room was just to the right of the elevators and Castle's was on the far left side at the end of the hall.

"Wanna switch?" He offered, presumably thinking the noise of the elevator car traveling up and down all night long would be unpleasant for her.

She half laughed. "Are you kidding me? By the time I get to bed tonight I could probably sleep next to a cruiser with its sirens on."

He chuckled as well. "Fair enough. Want to…meet up in the lobby? Walk over to the church together?"

She quirked an eyebrow at him. "What if I'm sick of you?"

The writer's jaw dropped and his face immediately went a shade paler. "I…ah, I-" He began to stammer and Kate laughed, thoroughly enjoying how uncomfortable she had made him.

"Gosh you're an easy mark, Castle. Yes—I'll meet you in the lobby." She added with a soft smile.

He gave her a momentarily stern look, but then grinned and turned to walk down the hall.

Still shaking her head at her joke, Kate turned to unlock the door to her own room. Of course she had been mostly kidding, but she had spent an almost unbelievable amount of time in the writer's presence since her trip began. Perhaps the most unbelievable part was that she didn't even mind it. In fact, it might have been strange if they didn't walk to the church together, but she simply explained that by thinking that perhaps it made the most sense to stay together because they were the only ones that understood how bizarre their journey had been to that point.

Once inside, Kate found her room at the Sheraton to be quite nice, particularly for a chain hotel in a beach town. Her eyes fell on the king-sized bed and jealously overtook her. Oh how she longed to sleep in a bed with sheets and a mattress purchased inside of a decade. Then again, given how little she had slept, even the bed back at the Good Sleep Motel might have seemed appealing. Unfortunately, due to their tardiness, she did not have time for a cat nap; she didn't even have time for a shower! Well, not to wash her hair, anyway.

After pulling out her dress and shoes and laying them across the bed, Kate hurried to the bathroom, twisted her hair into a bun, popped on the hotel-provided shower cap to keep it as dry as she could, and practically dove into the shower, washing all essential parts at top speed. That way, she would have just barely enough time to put on makeup, her dress and figure out what to do with her hair. Hopefully she could do all that without making either herself or Castle late to the event they'd worked so hard to attend.

* * *

Standing in the hotel lobby, leaning against the wall opposite the elevator alcove, Richard Castle patiently waited for his partner to arrive so that they could walk to the church together. As he lived in a home with two women, one of whom in particular took an extensive time perfecting her appearance, he was used to waiting and did not mind it one bit. For his partner, this was especially true.

 _Partner_.

Yes, Kate Beckett was one again his partner and he could not have been happier about it. Okay, their renewed partnership had not been officially discussed—she had actually only invited him to stop by the precinct and not join her on her next case, but Castle knew where that invitation would ultimately lead. He was merely a hop, skip, and jump to returning dutifully to the chair at the desk beside hers after over a year away and he was one hundred percent confident in his ability to scale those final hurdles and land there permanently. He was definitely not going to screw it up this time.

Just as he glanced down at his watch to see it displayed the time to be twenty-five minutes after the hour, Castle heard the elevator doors open with a chime. Looking up, the sight before him took his breath away. Kate Beckett approached looking quite differently than she had during their car ride, where she wore jeans and a gray NYPD t-shirt, and even different still than she had in the airport when they met up. As she approached, Castle took her in.

Starting at her feet, he observed sinfully sexy red sandals with a spikey heel high enough to make her nearly equal to his height. His eyes traveled up her luxuriously long legs to the hem of her skirt, falling just at the mid-lien of her thigh. Her dress was red to match the shoes and appeared to be made of a silky smooth body-hugging fabric that had a lace overlay turning what would have been a tank style dress into one that had capped sleeves. Starting at her bust and moving northwards the red under layer of the dress was missing, leaving a lace cut out illusion neckline. Keeping on theme, she wore red lipstick and drop earrings that glistened with both gold and hints of red. Simply put: she was stunning, and the man generally so adept at the English language, nearly crumpled into a stammering puddle.

"B-Beckett—oh, wow. You look—wow!"

She chuckled and skimmed her left hand back over her head, where her hair was twisted into a bun at the nape of her neck. She then reached that same hand out and brushed it over the sleeve of his jacket. "You're looking pretty handsome yourself, Castle."

"What? This old thing?" He asked, gesturing passively to what was actually a custom made Hugo Boss suit. Knowing they needed to get moving, he offered her his arm, but she politely refused and they walked out of the hotel side by side. Once out on the sidewalk he turned to her and asked, "Where is this church again?"

She eyed him curiously. "You mean you didn't bring your…" She paused to dig into the metallic gold purse dangling from a strap around her wrist. From it, she procured a folded sheet of paper and held it up proudly "…invitation map?"

"No." He laughed. Had there been something in the invitation packet other than the invitation? He had definitely thrown everything out after texting Jenny his confirmation of attendance and putting the date, time and location in his phone's calendar.

She folded her arms over her chest and eyed him carefully. "What did you plan on doing then?"

"Finding a herd of well-dressed people and following them."

She rolled her eyes as she unfolded her map. "You're absurd."

"I know."

As it turned out the church was quite easy to get to from the hotel; it was on the same street just three blocks further in from the beach. As they walked, Castle pointed out that he recalled a conversation with the boys in which Kevin mentioned that they had chosen the reception venue for its proximity to the church, and since the reception venue happened to be a hotel ballroom, everything had worked out.

Their trip was quick and uneventful, which was a relief to both of them, and soon they were welcomed inside the church by a familiar man posing as usher. Unlike when they saw him an hour prior, Esposito was now wearing his tie. In addition, he had a white boutonniere pinned to the label of his jacket. He handed them both programs before holding out his arm to Kate. "May I escort you to your seat, ma'am."

She chortled and was about to reach out for his arm, when Castle stepped around in front of them, waving the male detective off and saying, "I can take it from here, thanks." After receiving peculiar looks from both law enforcement officials, he backtracked carefully. "I-I mean if you want Beckett—if it's okay."

Kate nodded to her coworker. "Go on. Maybe you can help one of Jenny's single friends and she'll save you a dance at the reception."

"That is the goal." Esposito muttered to her before turning towards the next guest to greet. Meanwhile, Kate slipped her hand around Castle's elbow and he led her into the church sanctuary. When they passed a sign that said, "Pick a seat, not a side," Castle expressed his disappointment that it indicated there would not later be a battle of who was the strongest: the bride's friends or the groom's. Kate asked him what was wrong with him.

"So does this mean you don't want to sit next to me for the ceremony?"

She shrugged. "Well I've sat beside you for almost eight hours, what's one more?"

Castle allowed her to slide down to the middle of a pew six from the front of the church. When he came to rest beside her, he corrected her statement. "Nineteen."

"What?"

"You've sat beside me or been beside me in some form for nineteen hours." From dinner, to their time in the airport terminal, to the car, hotel bed, and then car again, they had never been outside of an arm's length apart for more than a few minutes in the duration of that time.

Kate groaned at this jaw-dropping number. "Oh god…that's so long."

"Um, sorry?" The writer offered, thinking for one melancholy moment she might decide to switch seats. Instead, she surprised him by sending a smile in his direction.

"Not just with you—I mean that's how long this ridiculous journey took us. Nineteen hours."

"Minus the three we spent sleeping."

"Right."

Despite the fact that he saw their journey as an adventure, Castle did understand the detective's annoyance. Had everything gone as planned, the trip would have only taken around two and a half hours. Twice as long would have been annoying, three times as long quite angering, but over seven times as long? That was quite ridiculous.

They sat quietly for several moments before Castle took note of their cohort walking a young, blonde, grinning woman down the aisle. As the tuxedo wearing man also smiled, Castle presumed the girl to be one of Jenny's single friends and gave the situation an approving nod. Turning to the woman on his right he asked, "Have you ever been in a wedding Beckett?"

She crossed her left leg over her right and turned to him. "Ah, yes—very shortly after college. A roommate of mine got married and she had seven bridesmaids."

"Seven." He echoed with a grimace. Both his weddings had two bridesmaids and two groomsman each, and sometimes that felt like too many.

She bobbed her head. "Yep. And the dresses were lime green."

Smiling, he said, "Oh it's getting better."

She chuckled. "No, it was actually very nice, but that was it—the only wedding I've been in. How about you?"

"Well I've been married twice."

She dropped her chin and said impatiently, "Yes, I know that."

He hummed and skimmed his hand across his chin. "And I've been a groomsman or usher…four times? Maybe five. Mostly when I was in my mid-twenties."

"Five times? Well, I guess I'm glad I've only done it once and probably won't again."

He tilted his head to the side when he looked at her. "Don't say that—you'll be in your own wedding!"

Her eyes flashed with an emotion he couldn't quite pinpoint. "Oh…right." Turning away from him so she could face the front of the church she added, "I was, um, talking about being a bridesmaid."

"Right," he said softly, not sure whether to believe her or not. His gut told him she wasn't; that she was implying she might never get married. As she had told him two years earlier that she was waiting for her "one and done" before walking down the aisle, that made him sad. Just a few months shy of her thirty-first birthday was absolutely not the time to be throwing in the towel on marriage; she was far too young for that.

Both from observation and from partnering with her Castle liked to think he knew a decent amount about the mysterious-at-times detective. She liked to keep her emotions and feelings close and not let them show; that much was plain within just a few hours of shadowing her. Whatever internal vault secured her innermost thoughts must have had security that rivaled that of Swiss banks, but in their year together he'd begun to see some cracks in her armor. She had a big heart and an unparalleled capacity to love, but she was afraid and on some level he understood. Yet, his fear only made him cautious and did not cause him to turn away from emotion completely. As the wedding music began, Castle silently hoped she'd be able to open up and let someone in some day, even if it wasn't him.

* * *

"That was a really, really nice ceremony." Castle commented as they stood in line with the other hundred and forty guests to exit the church.

"It really was." Kate agreed before handing the handkerchief she clutched tightly back to him. He immediately refused it.

"No it's fine; keep it. I have dozens." He promised with a smile. Truthfully, the fact that he'd witnessed Kate Beckett looking a little misty-eyed was worth the actual value of the monogramed square piece of linen a dozen times over. He was surprised, though pleasantly so, when he gazed in her direction during the vows. With a soft smile on his face, he had easily slipped his hand into the breast pocket of his jacket and passed her the cloth without a word. _Always carry a handkerchief like a gentleman from days gone by; women love that._ His mother's advice echoed in his mind as she accepted the item with a gracious smile.

Other than perhaps being a little long (Did they really need the _full_ mass? Wasn't there some abbreviated version?) it really was nice and endearing how both bride and groom had sniffled through their vows. They really, really loved each other.

As they filed out of the church, the ushers and groomsman handed each guest a regular sized sheet of paper with information on the remaining events for the day. Their reception was to begin with a cocktail hour at 5 p.m. in the Sheraton Hotel's Cape May ballroom with dinner and dancing immediately to follow. Given the little more than three hour gap between events, Ryan and Jenny had provided suggested activities for their guests to do in that time period including grab lunch (they had listed several restaurants), go for a walk on the beach, and going shopping at one of the many interesting shops Virginia Beach had to offer.

"Did Ryan tell you why there's such a gap between the ceremony and reception?" the writer asked.

Kate nodded. "Priest availability didn't line up with the availability of the ballroom they wanted to use. Ryan seemed really worried about it, but I didn't think it was that big of a deal—unusual, but not that bad."

"No, I suppose not." Castle could not recall ever attending a wedding when a gap between the ceremony and the reception was any longer than needed to travel between venues, but that didn't make this bad; simply different. "Anything on this list strike your fancy?"

As they stood out on the sidewalk in front of the church Kate gazed down at the list and then back up at her partner. "No…I don't see 'collapse from exhaustion' as one of the options."

He laughed out loud. "Seriously. We can get lunch—and coffee."

She nodded in agreement. "Definitely need coffee…but maybe just something quick for lunch? I'd actually really like to get a shower since I didn't have the chance. If you want something more-"

"No, no; something quick is fine. I need to save up room for dinner—Ryan promised a seafood overload," he said while patting his belly and wiggling his eyebrows enticingly at her.

Kate nodded in agreement to their plans. "So where should we go?"

"Well." The writer paused to paused to pull out his cell phone. "Let's see what Yelp has to offer…"

* * *

A/N: remember - 2 more chapters :)


	7. Chapter 7

**Chapter Seven**

Shortly before five p.m. Kate did one last check of her appearance in the bathroom mirror before picking up her purse and heading out of her hotel room. After grabbing slices of pizza and then coffees on the way back to the hotel, Kate had just around two and a half hours to shower, dry and style her hair, redress and then reapply her makeup for the reception. This seemed to be quite a lot of work, but as it made her feel much better it had been completely worth it.

As much as Kate had hoped to be able to lie down and shut her eyes for even a brief portion of that time, she was unable. Drying and curling her hair in the humid beach environment had proved much more difficult than she originally anticipated so in the end she did not have time. That was okay, though, because the shower and coffee had done wonders for her alertness. She would definitely be able to make it through the duration of the reception. After that…well, she'd see how she felt.

Just as she slipped her room keycard into her purse and rounded the corner leading to the bank of elevators, Kate was surprised to see Castle standing just a few feet from her; she laughed. "Were you…waiting for me?"

"I was indeed."

She gave him a half smile for his kind gesture. "That was nice of you."

He smiled in return and pressed the elevator call button. It arrived almost immediately and he guided her inside with his hand hovering just above the small of her back. "Enjoy your shower?"

"Very much. What did you do? Walk around?"

"Took a two hour nap."

She audibly gasped and her jaw dropped. "I'm so jealous!"

He shrugged. "Well, you could have napped too; you didn't smell that bad. Ow!" He whined when his comment earned him a jab in the shoulder. Then, he flashed her a grin. "If it makes you feel better: I like your hair better down."

"Thanks Castle," she said with the edge of a grumble in her voice, but really she was fighting to keep a blush from forming in her cheeks from his compliment.

Once down in the lobby, they followed the signs towards the section of the hotel in which the ballrooms were. By the time they reached the correct hall, it was already crowded with several dozen people. They found Esposito and got in line with the others to enter the ballroom for the cocktail hour.

For their decorating theme, Ryan and Jenny had chosen soft blue and seafoam green hues, presumably to emulate the ocean outside the ballroom window as best they could. Looking around, Kate found their attempt to be quite successful. The color was not overwhelming or oppressive but relaxing.

After waiting in line for drinks, the trio alternated between splitting up and making their way through the crowd and clustering back together for some familiar conversation. They were the only guests from Ryan's work; the rest were longtime friends or family members, so they didn't know too many others. Intermittently, they grabbed snacks from the waiters passing trays of food. By the end of first hour, Castle was well on his way to that evening's goal to, as Kate had described, eat his weight in seafood; he did not argue with her assessment.

Once they were seated, the wedding party followed by the bride and groom were all introduced before their plated meal was served. Kate had chosen the chicken while, keeping with his seafood theme, the writer chose the red snapper. Though they were both located at what Castle dubbed to be the "singles table" they were not seated next to one another but across from, but that did not stop either of them from doing the best they could to chat while they ate.

With the dinner plates cleared it was announced that there would be dancing before the cake cutting would take place. They remained seated through the bride and groom's first dance and then the dance of the bride with her father and the groom with his mother before the dance floor was opened up to all wedding guests. Though she had no intentions of jumping right on the dance floor, Castle refused to accept Kate's sedentary position, and practically ragged her by the wrist out onto the petite hardwood area in front of the DJ booth. While some more up-temp late eighties and nineties tunes played, the duo debated the benefits of wedding bands versus DJs.

When the music moved from The B-52's to a slower, more romantic song, Kate immediately began inching her way towards the edge of the floor, but the writer would not permit it. He snagged her around the waist and forced her hand into his despite her obvious distasteful expression in his direction. Of course, he was more than accustomed to her side-eye, so he merely pulled her close and they swayed together. It took her a full thirty seconds but Kate finally relented and relaxed her body beside his.

The longer the song went on, the closer Castle pulled them together. Kate barely noticed as she was enjoying the feeling of his arm around her back and her body close against hers. They had danced before—well over a year earlier—at a fancy gala event in the city. At the time, she had been technically working not to mention genuinely annoyed with the writer, and thus unable to fully enjoy the event. She did, however, recall the sparks she felt due to their close proximity—sparks she felt again that evening.

Leaning against him, Kate thought back to that morning when she'd awoken with her body curled beside his. It should have been weird; it should have felt weird. They hadn't seen each other in a great deal of time—not that they knew each other that well beforehand—they should have had moments of awkward conversation or uncomfortable silences, but they didn't. His hand curled around her waist should have been uncomfortable, but it wasn't. She found herself drawing so near to him that pulling her hand out of his and wrapping it around his shoulders would have been all too easy. If anything, she fought the urge to do so, and that unnerved her.

Soon Kate began to feel a familiar tightness in the back of her throat spiraling down into her chest. She needed a break; she needed to breathe. She needed to _not_ be around Richard Castle.

The moment the song ended, she pushed herself way from him and practically sprinted off the dance floor. He called out her name questioningly and she spluttered back, "Just need a minute," before hurrying out the exit. Had she been in her right mind, she might have been concerned she inadvertently caused him to think she were ill, but Kate wasn't in her right mind; she was panicking.

Her chest was so tight by the time she reached the main hall, she did not think even the lobby would suffice. No, she needed a cool breeze and fresh air, so she exited out the nearest door, walked around the sidewalk and back towards the boardwalk where she stopped just at the edge of the beach, hugged her elbows and gazed out across the sand.

What was happening to her? Why had dancing with Castle made her feel so…god, she didn't even want to think the words. She could not possibly have feelings for him, could she? Had she had feelings for him back when they were partners? She found him interesting, naturally. And, yeah, a girlish crush may have been involved at one point, but that was all. Now, things were different. Things had happened.

This was it—a classic moment of panic for her when things became too serious, too real. She would reach a precipice, a point at which her emotions and feelings were growing and it would become nearly impossible not to share more of herself with the gentlemen in question and then she'd simply cut and run, for the fear of opening up was too crushing to bear. What if it didn't work out? What if her heart got broken again?

What scared her particularly that evening was not that she was feeling those emotions—those were all too familiar—but that she was feeling them in connection with a man whom she had not dated, whom she had never kissed. Generally, such feelings were stirred inside her after months of companionship and the beginnings of intimacy. With Castle, she had none of that...or did she?

The stressful and dangerous nature of her job meant that during their partnership she and Castle were arguably put through a more rigorous test than most casual relationships went through in double the time. While that certainly sped the get-to-know-you process, that was also in a work-based, professional setting (well, as professional as the writer could possibly be).

For the prior twenty-four hours they had been in a stressful, non-work situation. Yet, consistently, Castle proved that he was still a reliable partner and a companion that she had—dare she think it—come to depend on. Certainly, they had come a long way from where they first started and, surprisingly, their year apart had not done too much to fracture the foundation on which they built.

But—wait a second—was she actually _considering_ …No. No a romantic relationship with Richard Castle was absolutely not something she was considering. That would be ridiculous! How would it even work? Yes, they had good times together but a serious relationship with the man who didn't know how to be serious? No. She would let him back into the Twelfth. They would work a few cases…and, well she'd have to see how things went from there. Maybe— _maybe—_ if he didn't—

"Hey."

She didn't even need to turn around to see who it was. Of course he had followed her.

"You okay?"

"Wha? Oh yeah I'm fine, just wanted some air." When she finally turned to look at him she saw he gazed at her with his head tilted to the side look of genuine concern on his face. Crap he did look adorable bathed in the pink-hued light of dusk. Maybe she did still have a little bit of a crush.

"Company?" He questioned.

She shrugged. "Sure if you want."

They began to walk down the boardwalk away from the Sheraton and towards the other hotels lining the beach. Almost three minutes of silence passed before the writer began with, "Forgive my curiosity, but I was wondering how you would rate our road trip?"

She laughed, not having expected this. "Oh is there a comment card I should fill out?"

He grumbled at her teasing. "C'mon. School ranking – A through F—and don't say F."

She slowed her walk and tuned to face him. No, an F certainly wasn't in the cards…though there were possibly some points during the actual trip that if he had asked her she would have given them a pretty low grade. Now that they had arrived at their destination and she was closer than not to an actual full night's sleep, she knew that their journey really had not been too awful. "Um…B? B Plus? The trip loses basically a whole letter for sheer exhaustion, but otherwise you weren't that bad of a road tripping companion, Castle."

He shook his head as he gazed down at her. "Your shocked tone offends me, Beckett."

"No it doesn't." She countered, very seriously. He shrugged. "But let's be honest, Castle: you can be a little over the top sometimes."

He gasped dramatically. "Me? Never."

She gave him a telling look as he had just proved her point. As she would have previously dubbed him to be the worst road tripping companion of all time, Kate was pleasantly surprised to say that he was in actuality the opposite. He had been excellent at navigation, warning her of turns or merges well before she needed to make them. He had been quick to look up any questions or issues that arose and even provided some interesting trivia. Above all else, though, he had been the reason their trip occurred at all.

"But seriously—you really saved the day. If you hadn't insisted upon driving, I wouldn't have made it to the wedding and you were right: I would have regretted missing it."

Castle smiled, but not as large as she would have expected given the compliment she gave him. He slipped his hands into his pockets, took five steps and then turned back to face her. "So…what I'm hearing is that I should make all your decisions from now on."

As the grin spread wide across his face, Kate trapped her bottom lip between her teeth and shook her head; she should have seen that coming. "Not a chance. And now the weekend is down to a C Plus."

"Beckett!" He groaned but she smiled again. She moved forward, intent on catching up with him, when a burst of chilly sea air rolled off the sand and hit them full on. Not expecting this drop in temperature, Kate shivered involuntarily.

"Oh." The writer said, stepping forward. He placed his hands on either side of the opening of his jacket. "You're cold. Do you want this?"

She refused his polite gesture gently. "No I'm fine. We should be getting back anyway; I'm sure they'll be cutting the cake soon. Or are you too full of seafood?"

He patted his belly. "There's always room for cake, Beckett."

* * *

Kate Beckett was utterly and serenely fast asleep when she was started awake by a stringent, high-decibel sound. Her heart rate immediately jumping into the triple digits, she gasped and sat upright in bed. What the hell was that?

When their allotted time in the ballroom came to a close at nine p.m. Ryan, Esposito, Castle and a handful of other guests began talking about cobbling together an after party and taking it to either the hotel bar or one of the other bars nearby. Though Kate had very much enjoyed her time on the dancefloor and the wedding cake they served—especially the cake—she was more than ready to end the evening early. The boys ribbed her and tried everything they could to get her to join them, but in the end her exhaustion won out. She had been up for nearly two days straight, and she had had enough.

She bid goodbye to the bride and groom, gave Esposito a one armed hug, and moved to do the same to Castle, when he refused, insisting on walking her to her room. While she assured him that was entirely unnecessary as they were barely more than an elevator ride away, the writer remained steadfast, so they returned to the second floor while laughing about the absurd dance moves they had witnessed from one of Jenny's cousins after he had consumed more than his fair share of alcohol. Once at her hotel room door, he had hugged her—a full, two-armed hug—and kissed her cheek and it had been…nice. Very nice, actually. Unlike the siren assaulting her ears, which was the exact opposite of nice.

Kate gazed around the room as the noise continued, her sleepy brain still struggling to process. She had only been lying down for a few minutes…hadn't she? Well, if she had fallen immediately to sleep she did not know for how long she had been in bed. As her surroundings came into clearer view, Kate realized that the sound she was hearing belonged to the hotel's fire alarm.

Great.

Of course the fire alarm was malfunctioning when she _finally_ had a chance to lay down in a bed from the current century with soft, clean sheets. Of course.

Grumbling to herself, Kate lay back against the pillow and tried to shut her eyes when a concerning thought hit her: what if the fire alarm wasn't malfunctioning?

If she really thought about it, Kate supposed she had been a in a public space—like a hotel, shopping mall, or office building—when the fire alarm had gone off perhaps a dozen times in her adult life. Not one of those times had been the result of an actual fire. Once, someone had burned popcorn in a microwave and set off the fire alarm, but that didn't count—and it was as close to a real fire as she'd ever seen.

For the most part during these incidents, the surrounding crowd took little notice of the alarm except to be annoyed by it, and continue about their day. Before she became a cop, Kate took little notice of this phenomenon; after, it bothered her. What would happen if there were a real emergency? Clearing the area would be made exponentially more difficult by the public's lack of concern for an emergency situation—particularly when it came to a fire since the safe window of escape was only minutes long.

Knowing she simply could not rest without checking, Kate flicked on the lamp by her bedside, blinked rapidly as her eyes adjusted, and then felt her way towards the hotel room door. After flipping open the deadbolt, she opened it to survey the scene in the hall. She barely had the door open an inch when she smelled it: smoke.

A fire. A real fire! Of course the forty-eight hours from hell would go up in literal flames.

Now genuinely concerned for her own safety, Kate rushed back into her room and grabbed only the bare necessities: shoes (which happened to be her red, high-heeled dress shoes) and the closet jacket she could find, the blazer that went with her suit from the prior day. Not wanting to waste time buckling on the sandals, Kate carried the items in her hand as she hurried from her room and turned right, only to nearly run in to a couple walking her way. Right—no elevators in a fire. Spinning on her toes, Kate followed the couple left—towards the stairwell.

By the time she reached the ground level Kate had put on her sandals and blazer. She paused to buckle them just outside the stairwell door before following the hoard of unhappy guests to the boardwalk. There, she looked back at the hotel and saw nothing out of the ordinary: no flames licking at windows, no smoke billowing from the rooftop. That was probably a good sign—maybe the remainder of her belongings inside would not be burned to a crisp.

As she had been woken from sleep, Kate did not know the time and therefore did not know if Castle, Esposito, or even Ryan and Jenny had remained at the hotel for their after party or moved elsewhere. Knowing that Castle's room was as the opposite end of the hotel from hers, Kate made her way through the collection of pajama-clad people in search of him.

Despite the hotel having several hundred rooms—the majority of which were full of guests—she was able to find the write quite easily as his large frame stood out in the crowd. When she finally got close enough to see him from head to toe, she almost laughed. Most of the guests had presumably been woken from sleep or, at the very least, were getting ready for bed and were thusly dressed in pajamas or underwear while wearing sneakers or sandals on their feet. Kate felt embarrassingly out of place with her fancy heels, but the writer's ensemble took the cake for being bizarre.

In addition to boxer shorts with yellow and orange smiley faces on them, he sported a blue t-shirt with Dr. Who's Tardis, his tuxedo's black jacket, and perhaps most strangely, his tie around his neck (thought it wasn't tied). And he was barefoot.

Kate slowed her walk so she stopped just in front of him, looked him up and down and said, "What happened?"

"The fire alarm went off!"

"I know; I was inside asleep!" She returned.

"Right…"

She laughed when he didn't continue. "Seriously why are you dressed like this? What's with the tie and where are your shoes?"

"There was smoke in my room!" He insisted with a slight whimper. "I panicked when I saw the smoke and I just grabbed what I could and ran; I thought the tie was my socks."

At his disappointed tone, Kate could not help but chuckle. She really did feel bad for him; had there been smoke in her room she certainly would have been much hastier when picking up her belongings, but he also looked hilarious. "Did you see the smoke seeping in from under the door or….?"

"No." He sighed somewhat mournfully. "I was in, ah, a delicate sort of situation."

Kate's eyes widened and she took a half step back saying, "Woah, I don't need that much detail." He certainly would not have been the first guy to pick up a lady friend at a wedding after party and bring her back to his hotel room, but she didn't need or want to hear about it.

"Wha—no. No—not. No. I was… _in the bathroom_." He corrected quickly.

Kate's brow rose and she felt her face flush with slight embarrassment at her assumption. Oh, the _other_ type of delicate situation. Okay, now she really felt bad for him—she would have certainly been displeased if the fire alarm went off while she was in a similar state. "Oh."

"Right. So when I finally opened the bathroom door and my room was all hazy and smoky so-"

"-you freaked out." She concluded. He bobbed his head. "Totally understandable. If I had socks, I'd give them to you."

He let out a breathy laugh. "Thanks."

The longer they stood out on the boardwalk the more Kate's adrenaline began to wear off. As it subsided, her discomfort increased. Now that night had fallen not only had the breeze increased, but the air temperature dropped as well, making her downright freezing. Unfortunately, her sleeping attire of shorts and a threadbare t-shirt didn't do too much to aid in her warmth. Even with the blazer she had enough skin exposure that much more time outdoors would make her downright miserable.

"How is this even possible?" She muttered as a chill traveled up her spine.

"Hmm?"

She turned to the writer and gestured widely towards their hotel building, now being examined by the fire crew that had arrived just moments earlier. "How is this even possible?" she repeated. "How could the weekend from hell get _worse_?"

"Well it was okay during the reception."

"You know what I mean!"

He gave her a small smile. "Yes, I do know, but look on the bright side: it's not raining."

She grumbled at him, shivered, and then pulled her blazer tighter around her body.

"Here—c'mere."

She looked over at him, curious and he beckoned her again.

"You're cold, right? Stand over here in front of me; I can block the wind for you."

Too cold to even come up with an argument to the contrary, Kate stepped forward so that she stood immediately in front of the writer while his back faced the sea. As expected, this did very little to warm her as the breeze was only part of the reason for her chill, but she appreciated his efforts. Dropping her chin to her chest, she gazed down at the ground and saw his bare feet against the concrete; they made her feel colder.

"Aren't you free freezing?"

"Yes; I'm sure I'll be losing a toe at any moment."

Kate turned her head to look back at him, met his eye, and they both burst out laughing. For a reason she did not understand and could never have explained, she found his statement utterly hilarious. It must have been the sleep deprivation.

Though their minute long laugh did make her feel slightly better, she was soon back to freezing as their time outdoors crossed into the ten minute mark. When her teeth began to chatter at the twelve minute mark, the writer gently placed his hands on her arms and rubbed them gently.

"May I?"

"P-please." She stammered out, desperate for anything that would make her feel warmer.

Castle rubbed his hands vigorously up and down her arms for several moments before stepping a bit closer to her and encasing her with his arms, which he crossed in front of her. She didn't even consider flagging his contact as inappropriate; his body was so warm she didn't care.

"So, uh, how was your after party?"

Castle leaned forward and rested his chin against her right shoulder. "Kinda boring without you."

She let out a breathy laugh. "Flattery won't make us warmer."

"But I can try, can't I?" he said, giving her a little squeeze. "But, seriously, it was mostly just Ryan and his cousins goofing around, so I was only there about…forty minutes? Then I went back up to my room and…well, you know the rest."

Kate grunted. So it wasn't that late after all. She had maybe only been asleep half an hour before the alarm went off. She was not sure if that made her feel better or worse about the situation.

For another ten minutes the duo remained huddled together on the boardwalk until a throat clearing and a casual, "Yo," startled them back to reality.

Kate opened her eyes to spot Esposito standing in front of her—standing in front of her while Castle was effectively hugging her. Great. She attempted to step forward and subtly remove herself form the writer's grasp, but she could not because his hands were locked together. The detective smirked at them.

"Having fun?"

"Not particularly." Kate replied. Gazing down she saw that he was still fully dressed I his wedding outfit and she was immediately jealous of his layers of clothing. "Are Ryan and Jenny out here?"

Esposito thumbed in the opposite direction. "Yeah, they're out front with Jenny's parents."

"I feel bad for them." Castle commented.

Esposito nodded. "Hell yeah. I'd be super pissed if I was trying to get my honeymoon on and the fire alarm went off. Anyway, I came over to tell you two that I flashed my badge to that fire marshal over there and he said the hotel had a small kitchen fire, but it was out before the fire company got here. Unfortunately, they still have to search the building, per protocol. It shouldn't be much more than an hour 'til we're back inside."

Kate's teeth chattered at this prospect. "An hour!"

His smirk showing again, Esposito looked between Kate, her companion, and then back to Kate. "Whatsamatter Beckett? You celebrating something, too?"

"No!" She answered quickly—a bit too quickly. Attempting to recover she added, "I just want to sleep—it's been two days!"

The detective nodded, obviously having momentarily forgotten her arduous journey south. "Oh. Right. Well you two can get back to your…" He paused as his eyes glazed over their intimate seeming position. "…cuddling."

"It's huddling—for warmth!" Castle called out as Esposito walked away.

The darker skinned man waived his hand casually. "Whatever!"

* * *

Butterflies filling his stomach, Castle stopped in front of his partner's hotel room door, closed his eyes for a moment, took a deep breath, and then knocked on it aggressively. He wasn't sure if she would have fallen back to sleep and wanted to make sure she heard him. Granted, there was a high likelihood she would also kill him, but that was a risk he was willing to take.

The seconds passed by at an agonizingly slow pace. What realistically was only about twenty-five seconds felt like an hour until she whipped open the door and growled, "What?"

"Hi."

"Castle!" She snipped. "It's one a.m.—what are you doing?"

Well, that was a long story, but he knew he had to be atypically brief due to the late hour and her limited patience. "So apparently my room is above the kitchens, which is why it was smoky when the fire started, and because of that it's still smoky—really smoky."

She blinked at him. "So tell the front desk."

He had—immediately. They were not as sympathetic as he would have liked, though they were also dealing with large group of extremely unhappy customers demanding some sort of refund for their inconvenience so he couldn't blame them. "I did. They said they're too busy dealing with the fire to give me another room. They told me to open the windows."

"Okay."

"The windows don't open."

"Did you tell them that?"

"Yes." Yes, he had made a second trip down the stairs (the elevators still weren't working), stood in a second, albeit smaller line, and informed them of this. They were equally as unsympathetic.

"Okay."

"They said it could be an hour or so before they find me a new room."

"Great!" she said with a small hint of sarcasm.

When she moved to shut the door, Castle's arm flung out and his palm rested flat against it, blocking her progress. She looked at him incredulously and he turned on his best wounded-puppy-dog face. "Beckett…"

After several seconds her eyes flared with understanding. "No—oh no. No way!"

"Please!" He folded his hands and held them out to her in hopes she would take mercy on him.

"No."

"Beckett."

"No, Castle. Go find Espo."

Knowing she would more than likely be adverse to his request to share her room, his first trip after the front desk had been to the male detective's room. "I did. His room only has a king bed and he won't let me share; he'd only let me sleep on the floor. C'mon Beckett. Even if you just have a king sized bed—you won't even notice I'm there." He pouted his bottom lip even further at her, hoping to win her over. Yes, he could have waited the hour in the hotel lobby or sucked it up and slept on Espo's floor (though the mere thought of that made his back ache), but they had shared a bed the night before and it had been fine. Why not make a trip of it?

For thirty second she stared at him, then a groan escaped her lips and she shook her head as she opened the door wider. "I cannot even…."

Delighted, Castle stepped into the room. He had honestly expected to have to beg and offer her use of his Ferrari for her to agree; he was getting off quite easy, but still wanted her to know how grateful he was. "Thank you—thank you so much! I owe you, like, one thousand coffees!"

She merely grunted in response and shut off the bedside light before he'd even reached the edge of the opposite side of the mattress. As stealthily as he could, Castle groped around in the dark until he found the edge of the covers and climbed inside. As promised, the king sized mattress allowed them to lay side by side without touching, so he settled back against the pillow, thinking, _Thank god it's not squeaking_.

Judging by the sounds of deep breathing beside him, Castle did not think they were laying down more than two minutes before Kate fell back to sleep. This made him smile softly. She had done the vast majority of the driving and then had even less sleep than him; he could only imagine how tired she was. Still, he was glad to be there beside her. He had thoroughly enjoyed spending the prior twenty-four hours—particularly when none of that time involved any dead bodies.

Thinking back on their time together, Castle was not sure which moment was his favorite; the day had certainly been filled with a variety of highs and lows. Their dance was foremost on his mind as he had very much enjoyed the way her smaller frame tucked so easily against his. More than that, he enjoyed that _she_ was the one cuddling against _him_ , thereby showing that their time together had not just reopened the door to their partnership rejuvenating (along with—dare he think it—the possibility for more), but that the foundation for that relationship was just as sturdy as it had ever been.

While that moment was perhaps the most enjoyable, the moment that stuck with Rick the most was the one shortly after that—when he found her standing out by the beach. When he caught up to her, she appeared so scared, like she'd nearly drowned and was still gasping for air even though she was back on dry land. He found these emotions peculiar, as nothing particularly terrorizing had happened inside the ballroom. They had been having a nice dance—nothing scary about it. Still, he wondered, but had not yet thought of a specific reason as to why before he slipped into a deep slumber.


	8. Chapter 8

**Chapter Eight**

The following morning, Kate awoke feeling miraculously rested. She still had a mild headache and dreamed of nothing more than spending the late afternoon and evening resting in her apartment before her shift started in twenty-four hours, but she no longer wondered whether or not she'd be able to survive the day. Considering how absurd the prior day and a half had been, that was a refreshing change.

Lying on her back, Kate arched her back in a stretched and then froze when she heard a snuffling breathing noise from her left side.

Shit. Castle was in bed with her. How had she forgotten that? Oh, right, because he'd shown up at her door six and a half hours earlier while she was half asleep.

Lifting her head tentatively, Kate saw that the writer appeared to be still sleeping so she let out a relieved exhale. At least she still had a few moments to process the fact that she was waking up in bed with Richard Castle for the second day in a row. At least she wasn't draped all over him this time.

God. How deliriously exhausted had she been to agree to share a bed with Castle—twice?! He was…well, she didn't know what he was.

Two days earlier, if someone had told her that she would be waking up beside him before the weekend was out, she would have laughed and then pulled out her gun to threaten them. At that point, the concept was implausible. Then again, so were many events of the weekend. In a bizarre and backwards sort of way it made sense that the strange events had been the reason they became closer...then again, maybe thoughts like that proved she was spending too much time around the writer. All Kate knew for sure was that she was ready for a day without disasters looming around every corner.

Within a few minutes, Castle began to wake, yawning and stretching by pressing his hands against the headboard of the bed. When he gazed over and saw her looking his direction, he mumbled out, "Hey."

"Good morning." She returned trying to keep things as formal as possible. But was it really possible to be formal while lying in bed with someone? Kate decided not to overthink that point too much.

Castle yawned again and scratched his side. "You sleep okay?"

"Not enough, but yeah."

"I know the feeling; I'm definitely going to nap on the way home." He grumbled as he reached for his phone. He held it above him, studied the screen for a few moments and then sat up in bed. "Brunch is in an hour so I'm gonna…."

"Right." Kate sat up as well when he moved to stand. "You should get back to your room someone sees you." And, by someone, she of course meant Esposito. If one of Ryan or Jenny's friends or family members saw Castle changing rooms at such an early hour they would think…. Well, she knew exactly what they would think, but it wouldn't matter. That was to say—they wouldn't say anything to Ryan or Jenny so the incident would effectively go unnoticed. Oppositely, if Esposito saw….Kate almost shivered at the prospect.

Just a few feet from the door, the writer flashed her a smirk. "Please. I won't be the only one doing a walk of shame."

"Castle!"

"Kidding…well, not really, but you know what I mean." With one more smile he disappeared out the door and Kate flopped back against her pillow with a groan. She really, really, really did not want him to run into Esposito, because there was no way in hell he would believe they platonically shared a bed—particularly not after he saw them cuddling on the boardwalk.

Huddling—they were huddling!

Shit, what a mess.

After running her hands across her face, Kate sat up, swung her legs over the edge of the bed and gazed at her suitcase. She had time for brunch before her flight, though just barely, meaning she needed to pack everything up and be ready to roll out as soon as they were done eating, but that was okay; she had no need for anything else and her jeans and blouse would be sufficient enough for brunch attire. First, she needed a shower and then she'd pack. Unfortunately, coffee would have to wait.

* * *

"Jeez, Castle, did you leave any bacon left on the buffet for anyone else?"

The writer shot her an unamused look at he sat down beside her in the ballroom set up for the morning-after brunch. Really, Kate was teasing him. He had four strips, which was far from excessive, but as they were piled on top of eggs, hash browns and what appeared to be a cheese Danish, they looked the most prominent. "And what happened to this being the weekend of seafood?"

He scrunched his nose. "I don't think seafood goes with breakfast."

"Lox on a bagel?" she offered.

He hummed as he sipped his coffee. "Might be popular in New York, but I've never been a huge fan. Besides who would want fish with all these delightful pork products?"

She chuckled. "Fair enough." For her own breakfast she had chosen a small plate of eggs, two strips of bacon, and a blueberry muffin. Of course, with that she had a very large cup of coffee.

They had only been seated for a few minutes before Esposito joined them. Ryan and Jenny walked in just behind him, but they immediately bombarded with guests and saw with their family rather than coworkers. The trio began chatting about the concept of including brunch with a wedding weekend and how it was a new trend that none of them were sure if they would do at their own nuptials.

When Castle excused himself to get seconds and asked if anyone needed anything (they didn't), Kate remembered that in all the exhaustion and business of the day before, she had not remembered to check in for her flight. Pulling her phone from her purse, she scanned her email inbox for the reminder to do so, but did not find it. Figuring it was just buried among work emails and ads for store sales, she went directly to the airlines website only to find that, horrifying, there was no record of her flight. What the hell did that mean?

"Something wrong Beckett?" the writer asked as he returned to his seat.

"Um…I don't know." She responded truthfully, still thinking there might be some sort of website error. "My flight home isn't showing up on the airline website when I enter my conformation number; it's displaying an error."

"Really?" Castle asked, pulling out his own phone as Esposito did the same.

"You're on the 1:30, right?" the other detective asked. "Mine is showing up fine; says the flight is on time."

Kate glanced hopefully over at her partner, thinking that if his flight information was fine then hers would be as well. Surely, there was some sort of explanation other than the one she feared the most: that the airline had lost her reservation and she actually did not have a seat on the flight back to New York. As the furrow in Castle's brow deepened, her hopes faded away.

"Hmm…I can't find mine either. I wonder—oh!" He gasped and looked up to Kate. "I bet I know what happened. When we canceled our flight to come down here, the whole trip was canceled—return flight included. That happened to me on a book tour once."

Kate let out a mournful sound as she cradled her head with her hand. Of course that day was going to be as disastrous as the one before and the one before that! _Of course_. How could she think anything different of the trip from hell! "This weekend is a nightmare."

A moment later Kate felt a hand land on her shoulder and give it a gentle squeeze. "Don't worry, Beckett. We'll just go to the airport as planned and rebook. There are probably still seats available. If not, we'll take a different flight."

Her patience now far beyond the end of her rope, she lowered her hand from her face and snipped at him. "How many flights do you think go out of the Norfolk airport each day!?"

The writer tentatively pulled his hand away from her body. "Um…a few?"

"Maybe there will be a flight to Newark this afternoon." Esposito suggested positively.

Castle gave him an appreciative smile before turning back to Beckett. "There. See. I'm sure I'll be fine."

Kate turned back to her cup of coffee and said nothing; somehow she just couldn't bring herself to believe him.

* * *

"The first available flight is…WHEN?!"

Kate was trying—she was really, really trying to keep her cool and not leap across the ticket counter and commandeer the American Airlines ticket counter agent's computer. Really, the agent was being very nice, but Kate's patience had simply worn far too thin after the hellish weekend she'd experienced. With utter disbelief, she glanced back at the writer, who appeared to be cringing, and then over to the ticket agent once more.

"Tomorrow morning, ma'am." The woman informed her nicely, clearly oblivious to the gasoline she was throwing on the fire searing through Kate's chest cavity. "I can book a seat for you now, if you'd like."

Tomorrow morning!? Another night in Virginia Beach? Well, no, she couldn't spend the night—her shift began at seven the next morning meaning she would have to—dear god—drive back to New York. That was simply unacceptable. "There's nothing earlier that would go into another airport? Newark maybe?"

The ticket agent turned her gaze back to her computer screen, tapped at the keys, and surveyed the options. "I have a flight that connects into Newark; you'll land at 11:05 p.m. Would you like me to book that?"

Kate moaned and covered her face with her hand. This could not be happening.

"Did you check Philadelphia?" The writer chimed in front behind her.

Again, the woman turned back to her screen. Thankfully, this time she had more positive news. "I do have three seats remaining on a flight to Philadelphia this afternoon, but they're all in first class."

Castle pushed his way up beside Kate and passed his AMEX Black card over to the ticket agent. "We'll take two of them."

Immediately, Kate's heartrate sped. She had no intentions of the allowing Castle to foot the bill for her ticket home. He had already paid for their rental car on the way down and though she did pay for the two tanks of gas they needed, she still felt as though she needed to pull her fair share. Him buying her ticket was unnecessary particularly when she was willing to pay just about anything not to have to drive seven and a half hours again.

"Castle I can-"

"I know you can, but you don't have to."

Her expression remained hesitant so he added, "Now I only owe you five hundred coffees for staying in your room last night."

After the ticket agent processed their tickets and handed them their boarding passes, Kate and Castle walked towards the security check in line and she thanked him for the ticket and added, "And thank you for not saying road trip."

He chuckled. "Fun as that was I really cannot drive that far again—at least not this soon."

"Or ever…"

He clicked his tongue and nudged her with his elbow. "Oh c'mon – it wasn't that bad. We'll have to do it again in a year or two…"

Not wanting to get into what she feared would be an endless debate with him, she merely sighed and said, "Whatever you say, Castle…"

* * *

"See Beckett; this is all working out."

Castle grinned over at his partner when she took her seat beside him in the first class section of the plane. Granted, given how small the plane was, the first class section was only three rows, but for all the two weary travelers cared it could have been a seat in the very back next to the bathroom; as long as they were on the plane.

While arranging her seatbelt, the detective shot him a side-eye. "Which part, exactly is working out as you intended?"

"We're on the plane, aren't we?"

She let out a soft noise of derision. "Yeah, except we're going to end up in Philadelphia, not New York."

Castle fought to keep from rolling her eyes. She made it sound as though their final destination was on the other side of the country and not an hour away from where they wanted to be. "So? We'll take a train back to the city; no big deal."

She plastered on a fake smile as she looked at him. "New Jersey Transit—my favorite."

He shook his head as he buckled his own seatbelt. "Now, now, Beckett—haven't you learned by now? Everything is an adventure."

When she pulled her book out of her bag and began paging through, Castle picked up the seatback American Airlines magazine and flipped it open. He didn't want to bother turning on his iPad only to have to put it away again during takeoff. Considering that passengers had finally stopped filing on to the plane, Castle assumed they would be in the air in a matter of ten or so minutes. Unfortunately, his assumption was wrong.

By the time he reached the end of the magazine, Castle felt as though he had been sitting on the plane for an unusually long amount of time. Glancing at his watch, he realized it had been about sixteen minutes since they sat down. He looked up and saw the aircraft door was still open. That probably wasn't a good sign.

Turning his head cautiously to his left, Castle saw the detective sitting with her arms folded tightly over her chest, her lips pressed tightly together and a scowl on her face. From this he deduced that she also thought something was amiss.

Though part of him wanted to make a comment about their situation, he thought better of it; best not to fan the flames of her fury if it could be avoided. Instead, he flipped open the magazine once again and began leafing through and reading the articles he had skipped the first time around.

Twelve minutes later, Castle's attention was pulled away from a rather bizarre article about a flight attendant and her desire to raise farm animals for showing competitions when Kate muttered out, "I knew it!"

Lifting his head he saw that she definitely appeared more annoyed than justified which, again, he knew to be a bad sign. Knowing he could stay silent no longer he asked, "What?"

Kate stabbed her finger in the direction of the flight attendant two rows in front of them. "That guy just asked her what's going on and she said, 'We hope to be in the air soon,' which means it's going to be forever! This really is the trip from hell!"

While she covered her face with her hands, the writer reached over and gently patted her knee. "C'mon Beckett—it's not so bad. If there was something seriously wrong with the plane we wouldn't be on it. I'm sure it's just a small delay and then we'll be home before you know it." She lifted her head and he saw her expression to be a bit pitiful so he came up with an idea to help pass the time. "Let's talk about something to distract ourselves okay? You pick the topic."

"How awful this trip is."

"No," he said quickly. "Pick something else."

She groaned and rolled her head back against the seat. "I don't know, Castle; you pick something."

With that invitation, he merely grinned.

* * *

"So…" Castle began as they slowed their walk in front of Kate's apartment door. He set her bag down just outside and adjusted the duffle bag strap on his shoulder. "Interesting trip, right?"

Kate threw her head back and let out a loud laugh. "You can say that again." Flight delays, a long drive, a broken hotel bed, a hotel almost fire, and the whole thing capped off with a nearly hour-long delay on their flight home? Yeah, that was interesting all right. At least Castle had been kind enough to hire a car to bring them back to the city. At the rate they were going, their NJ Transit train would have derailed.

The writer smiled at her and dipped his fingers into his pants pockets. "Call me crazy, but I'm, ah, actually a little glad our original flight was canceled."

"Oh you're definitely crazy." Kate dragged her teeth over her bottom lip and rocked back on her heels. "But you know what? I am too—kind of." If their original flight had gone off without a hitch, Kate was not sure how she and Castle would have ended the weekend. Surely, they would have spoken to each other if not on the plane then later on.

Castle probably would have suggested sharing transportation from the airport to the hotel, which she would have agreed to for purely logical reasons. He might have struck up a conversation then or waited until the next morning, maybe when they were on the way to the wedding. Kate was at least partially convinced that if their journey had not had a million speedbumps it was possible Castle would have talked his way back into shadowing her by the end of the trip, but even if he had done so with an apology she still would have been wary. Now, after their forty-eight hours of bonding, she felt their relationship was back on track. Perhaps it was even stronger.

At her comment, the writer smiled ear-to-ear. "So I'll see you tomorrow?"

Her brow rose. Yeah, they were back on track, but there was something to be said for a little distance. "Tomorrow?"

"At the twelfth. You said…"

"Oh." He had meant he was going to return to shadow her. Well, that was all right, she supposed. They were shorthanded with Ryan on his honeymoon so she certainly wouldn't turn him away. "Sure. I didn't realize you'd want to come back so quickly."

"I think I've been gone long enough."

Kate bobbed her head; on that point, she had no trouble agreeing. "Well, then, I'll see you tomorrow." She moved to extend her arm to shake his hand, but then held it out awkwardly. A handshake seemed far too formal of a way to part, but was a hug really appropriate? And, of course, now the writer was staring down at her hand, amused, which caused her cheeks to fill with heat. Shit.

"Have a good evening, Kate." He told her gently. Then, without waiting for her response, he leaned down and pressed his lips against her cheek, lingering for two to three seconds longer than he probably should have, their noses almost brushing together. Kate felt herself leaning into him involuntarily, but just as she moved forward, he pulled back, gave her a small wave, and walked back towards the elevator.

Somewhat dazed, Kate turned to her apartment, unlocked the door, grabbed the handle of her luggage, and pulled it inside behind her. Once the door was shut, she looked down at the handle disappointed. For several moments she stared, but then suddenly snapped back to reality.

Wait—what was happening? Was she upset that Castle didn't—no. No! That was ridiculous, preposterous!

And, okay, maybe their flight back to Philadelphia was nice—great, actually. Once he'd started the conversation (and ordered a drink for each of them) she found her stress and anxiety relating to their delay melting away. Soon he had her laughing so hard that she actually snorted—twice. She was sure the people sitting in the surrounding rows must have hated them, but she didn't care; she was actually enjoying herself.

Oh god—she did like Castle. She _liked_ him. For all his faults and mistakes, he was a good man—a man that made her smile and laugh and who somehow, despite all her efforts to hide, seemed to know her better than she ever thought he could. And, right then, in that moment, she had wanted him to kiss her—really kiss her. It wasn't planned out, it was far more reckless than her usual style, but in that moment she didn't care.

Fueled with a mixture of delirious joy and sleep deprivation induced insanity, Kate whipped open the door to her apartment, thinking that maybe she could catch Castle outside the elevator if he was still waiting for the car, but there was no need for he was merely a few feet from her. Casually leaning against the opposite wall, his duffle bag still slung over one shoulder, Richard Castle stood with his hands in his pockets and a dopey grin on his face. When their eyes met she both wanted to punch him and hug him.

"How…?"

He stepped forward, let the bag fall to his feet, and shrugged. "Had a hunch." With that, he stepped forward, slipped his hands beneath either side of her jaw, and tilted her chin up until her lips met his.

Kate's hands fell against his sides, she leaned in to him and—oh. This was what kissing Richard Castle felt like. It was butterflies in her stomach, her heart humming beneath her ribs, and her skin tingling beneath his touch; it was everything she thought their first kiss could be and more.

When they broke apart a moment later, Castle nudged his nose against hers and skimmed his thumbs down her jaw. Kate's entire body flushed and she suddenly felt the most overwhelming urge to grab him by the lapels of his jacket and drag him inside her apartment. She maintained just enough self-control _not_ to do that. Instead, she cleared her throat and took a half step back from him.

"Ah yeah…tomorrow. And then, um, maybe we can go to dinner sometime this week?" She offered as a sign that their kiss would not be a one-off event, but yet she still needed time to process and consider.

He smiled, picked up his back, shouldered it, and then backed two steps away from her. "Sounds great. Until tomorrow, Beckett."

"Until tomorrow." She echoed dreamily as she watched him turn the corner towards the elevators; she couldn't wait.

* * *

 _A/n: Thank you all so much for your amazing and wonderful reviews to this story. You have no idea how much i appreciate them!_

 _I know this one was a quick one and so i have good and bad news. The good news is that there is a sequel that's outlined...the bad news (which might also be good news) is that i got distracted writing 4 other fics so i never got back around to the sequel. i hope so, but i make no promises._

 _Up next is an AU,_ ** _The Life We Built_** _, and I'm very, very excited about it. It's really long and I had a lot of fun writing it, so I hope you guys enjoy it too._

 _Thanks again for reading and I'll see you soon!_


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